Za Kaze Shokkou The Wind Weaver
by Cloud1239999
Summary: Naruto Uzumaki has always been a hyper child. What would differ if Naruto grew up differently because he was able to learn how to read at an early age? Meet Uzumaki Naruto Wind user extrordinair. Watch and enjoy as Naruto hits the world like an hurricane
1. 0: Introducing Naruto

AN: Ok people, at this stage this fanfiction is only a beta run to see what you people think of it. So far I've only written this one chapter, it being the prologue, and I want to know your opinions. Doesn't matter what on as long as it has to do with the story. This will be my first Naruto fanfiction and I hope you guys enjoy it.

OoOoO

Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. As simple as that. I'm only experimenting with an idea I had that if people like I will continue to write this story.

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

OoOoO

In the city of Konoha there is a small urban legend. Many spies from other hidden villages have investigated it but there are only a few people who know that this legend is most definitely true.

This Urban legend is actually a well-guarded secret that states that there is a genius orphan who through personal study created some of the most powerful wind jutsu's that you would ever hear of. Techniques that would put even the mighty Kazeitachi to shame.

Only one of this boy's techniques are known to the public and through its use, the genius inventor is currently running from the Chuunin that took chase after his greatest achievement yet. (At least in his opinion.)

"NAAARRRUUUUUTOOOOOO!"

That was the call of battle that just ripped out of the mouth of a certain scarred Chuunin.

"Awww crap. Not Iruka-Sensei again."

With that statement the blonde haired twelve-year-old boy, whose name was just stretched out in what quickly became a futile shout, sped up in what at first glance looked like running. A second more scrutinizing glance would reveal that the boy wasn't actually running but rather slightly hovering. That's right hovering about an inch off the ground and propelling himself forward like an ice-skater would.

You see what he was currently doing was actually his most practical technique. In truth the technique is actually a variation of both the tree-climbing and water-walking exercises. What this means is that he is actually releasing a small set current of chakra out of the bottom of his feet and with the principle of the tree-climbing exercise using the portion of the chakra to create a one-way friction current that propels himself forward in the direction that he is facing. By actually maneuvering like he is a skater he is aiding the forward momentum by propelling himself forward. For an easier way of picturing this, imagine yourself skating down a slope but you continue to propel yourself forward to get better speed. This technique is called Tenkuu Suraida. (Air Slider.)

So far with this technique very few people have been able to catch him, speaking of one of them, Naruto is approaching one now without even realizing it. That is, until his forward momentum comes to a complete halt and he realizes that he is being held up in the air by an aged hand. Looking up Naruto answers with the one statement that he seems to use the most often at the end of these chases.

"Oh… Hey old man!" Naruto waves at said old man from his hanging position, who just smiles in return.

"Enjoying your morning exercise I see Naruto." The Hokage says smiling down at the boy.

To this Naruto can only give a sheepish grin.

"Um, Ano. Could you please put me down now?"

"Sure Naruto. Only once Iruka catches up though."

To this Naruto could only groan.

OoOoO

Okay, that's it for the prologue to this story. I hope you all enjoyed. Just in case you all haven't guessed yet this story starts the day before Naruto's 3rd Genin exam, except for this time it is actually his first.

Anyways, That is all I have to say for now so I guess I'll just say Adios, I'll reply to any reviews necessary and I hope to see at least ten reviews before the next chapter. Not trying to be greedy here. (rubs back of head embarrassedly.)


	2. 1: The end of the Academy

Wow, 23 reviews before I even found time to start writing this chapter and now 25. I'm quite surprised and I thank you all for the excellent reviews that have encouraged me to continue this fanfiction. At first I was tempted to do a rewrite of the prologue, extending it by at least another two thousand words. Then I realized exactly how hard it is for me to go back and rewrite something. So instead I'm just making that extension into this first chapter and leave out what I would've put before hand though it may appear later on. Anyways, now I'm rambling on here a bit so I think I'll just cut this here and get on to the story.

OoOoO

Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

PS: All the things mentioned probably won't appear until later but I'm making the rating M now so that I don't have to change it and wind up getting some people confused. So just don't be too surprised or offended when it does, because I won't put up any giant banners warning about something like language. In the case of a lemon though, if I put one in, I will put a warning in an AN at the beginning of the chapter. Oh yes, and just to warn you, when I mentioned gore in the Rating Warning I meant that I can be quite descriptive with gory details when I want to be and I've even had some of my friends read some gory parts and enjoyed watching them squirm in imaginative discomfort.

And now the story REALLY begins.

OoOoO

"Alright class, now that our resident prankster is back among us." This first sentence resulted in light laughter from most of the students in the class. "We will be doing review of the Henge-no-jutsu."

Umino Iruka stood at the front of the classroom with an amused smile on his face as he looked over the students of his class. Iruka waited a few more seconds for the students to calm back down before he continued.

"As we all should know by now, the gennin exam will be tomorrow so we will be doing this review in order to be sure that we are all ready and if not the respective people will have a better clue of what they need to touch up tonight. Alright," He claps his hands to make sure that he has everybody's attention. "Everybody please line up at the front of the classroom. We will begin right away."

OoOoO

It was two hours later after class that Iruka and Naruto stood at the base of the Hokage monument looking up at the results of what Naruto had done. The faces of the Hokage's stared out over the village with paint that made the first look stuck up, the second looked like he was about to start a rant, the third had a nose bleed, his eyes looked glazed over and he had a perverted grin, and the fourth; well the fourth was the only one untouched except that he was painted to look like a real person instead of just a stone face.

They stood staring up at Naruto's handy work for a few minutes in silence before Iruka broke said silence with a question.

"Why?"

Naruto moved his eyes from where they were recently glued to the lifelike visage of the fourth over to his teacher. "As a reminder."

That answer was one that Iruka was not expecting. He turned his face down from the monument to look at Naruto as he looked back up at the face of the fourth. Out of the corner of his eye Naruto saw the unspoken question on Irukas face.

"I did it as a reminder to the people of this city that nobody is perfect, that even people as great as the Hokage's all have their faults and that it is not an impossibility for anyone who decides to work hard enough to be like they were or in the Old Man's case are."

Iruka stood there with a proud look as he contemplated the words of his student. After a little bit he couldn't help but chuckle a little bit at a thought that just came to mind.

"But you mostly did it to get a rise out of the village didn't you."

"Hehehe, you know me too well Iruka-sensei." Iruka chuckled again after hearing that from Naruto.

"Well, I think it is about time that you cleaned this up Naruto. If you do a good enough job, then I might treat you to some ramen tonight." That last statement grabbed Naruto's attention really quickly and he started jumping up and down in his excitement for a few seconds before he suddenly stopped.

"This will only take a second." When he saw Iruka's incredulous look Naruto gave one of his huge foxy grins and Iruka suddenly had a sneaking suspicion. Which was proved correct when Naruto put his hands in the ram seal and simply muttered one word, "Kai". After Naruto did that, the paint on the faces wavered for only a second before completely disappearing.

"So it was a mild genjutsu, eh Naruto?" Naruto grinned up at Iruka as they turned away from the monument as the villagers who wanted to see 'The Demon Child's' punishment just stood slack jawed.

"Yep, I just used the bare minimal chakra necessary just to create the visual illusion and spread it as thinly as I possibly could. By doing that I knew that with the shock of the paint people wouldn't think to look for such a small amount of chakra. All it would've took for someone to see that it was a genjutsu was for someone to walk up and touch the paint. Heck, that probably would have dispelled the illusion." Iruka grinned at Naruto's statement.

"Well, good job. You obviously had everyone fooled."

As the two walked off toward Ichiraku's, Sarutobi stood off at the back of a small crowd of gawking villagers smiling softly as he listened to the conversation between the teacher-student duo.

OoOoO

AN: I personally think that this would be a good place to stop but unfortunately for me I made a promise to several people that I'd be making longer chapters and with this one I plan on getting the ball on the roll. Not to mention that it is still much too early for a chapter ending scene. I thank you all again for being patient with me.

OoOoO

The next morning Naruto walked into class with a big fox grin on his face. Some of the people who were already there were chatting about how the blonde boy before them had managed to pull off what they thought was a complicated genjutsu. Others who were there when Naruto dispelled the jutsu were speaking of the explanation the Naruto gave of the genjutsu.

As this was going on there were two specific people who each in their own way was thinking about what Naruto had done.

None of the three expected for them to ever wind up on the same team.

OoOoO

A few minutes later Iruka and Mizuki both walked into the classroom and as Mizuki walked through another door into the backroom Iruka called the students attention through his usual (unfortunately) necessary loud shouts. Once everyone was calmed down Iruka took a deep breath and began to explain the test.

"Alright everyone, I know that nearly all of us are overly excited to be here today." As he said that his eyes wandered over the ever-silent Aburame, the lazy Nara, and the brooding Uchiha. "Unfortunately before we get to the test there is something that after talking to the Hokage we thought would be a great last lesson for you." If Iruka didn't have anyone's attention when he started talking he had their attention now.

Iruka grabbed an eleven-foot long scroll that was leaning in the corner of the room that was until then ignored and hung the opening flaps on two small hooks that were put on the ceiling for this purpose. When he pulled the scroll open he got snickers from some, curious looks from others, and some full blown laughter from a certain Inuzuka. Naruto was one of the curious onlookers instead of blowing out in laughter like Kiba because there hanging in front of the class was a large painting of the Hokage monument with the 'extra additions' that Naruto had done with his genjutsu. Iruka smiled as he looked at each student before he continued speaking.

"Now, this is one of three different paintings made of the Hokage monument. Yesterday evening while I was in a meeting with the Hokage, the artist who made this painting visited us and we discussed a few things about it. What we are going to do is a quick group analytical exercise. That means I want you paying attention too Shikamaru." Another few chuckles while said Nara lifted his head from his desk mumbling 'Troublesome' under his breath. "What I would like all of you to do, except for Naruto that is since he is the one who started off this whole thing and knows this already, is to take the next five minutes and individually analyze this painting. I'd like each of you to write down your observations. Before you start, I'd like to remind all of you to 'read beneath the underneath'. After the five minutes are up we will take forty-five minutes to discus all of your thoughts as a group. After this we will do our gennin exam. You may begin. Naruto if I may talk to you out in the hall for a minute."

OoOoO

"Naruto, I hope you don't mind that the Hokage and I deciding to use this as the last lesson." Said boy stood across from Iruka in the hallway.

"Um, I don't mind at all Iruka-sensei." Naruto rubbed the back of his head. "It's just a little embarrassing is all." Iruka smiled down at Naruto hearing this.

"Well at least you aren't going to die of embarrassment by the look of things. At the end of the discussion I'd like you to tell everyone what you told me about it. Is that alright?" Naruto nodded. "How about we get back to the others then?"

OoOoO

"Uzumaki Naruto. Please follow me to the testing room now."

At this point of the tests there were now only two students who needed to do the Jutsu portion of the test. Of the thirty students in the class three have failed so far. Naruto was nervous about this part of the exam. Not because he didn't have confidence in his abilities, but because from the whispers of exiting students he knew that the test required the use of the one academy jutsu he knew was an impossibility for him to perform. The Bunshin-no-Jutsu. Yes, Naruto knew how to properly perform the technique. But there was one slight problem.

"Ok now Naruto. In order to pass the test you must create two perfect replications of yourself." Here Naruto gulped and started sweating a little more.

"Ano Sensei, but I can't." Naruto looked down as he said this.

"And why would that be?" Asked Mizuki, the teacher's assistant.

"I'm unable to use the proper balance of chakra necessary to make the replications stable." When Naruto said that Mizuki raised an eyebrow as Iruka frowned slightly while crossing his arms across his chest.

"I'm sorry Naruto I do know of your problem, but the academy requirements state that you must be able to make two perfect replications in order to pass the Genin exam. No matter what I said the people in charge wouldn't waver on that requirement. You'll just have to try your best, and if you're unable to do it try again next year."

"Alright then Iruka-sensei. I was wondering then, if I'd be able to do a slight shortcut in the technique?" Iruka and Mizuki were curious about what Naruto was talking about. As far as they knew there were no ways to shortcut a jutsu except to learn the feelings of the molding chakra in order skip the hand seals, but Naruto said himself that he is unable to produce the balance necessary to create stable replications.

"Will you please explain for us Naruto?" At this statement Naruto put on his foxy grin as he started talking.

"In the last several months I've been doing research on the origin of hand seals and how they affect our abilities to mold chakra. As I was reading the beginning of this book I found in the library, it gave an explanation of how the first ninja's used jutsu and how at first they actually had to write each jutsu in a seal form then have a monk at a temple 'bless' it to give the paper chakra." Iruka nodded for Naruto to continue. "Then several years later a person whose name was never recorded discovered that these seals could be used to help change how chakra flows in a person's body."

"Ok, Naruto this is very fascinating and all, but how does this help with how you're going to perform this shortcut to using Bunshin-no-jutsu?"

"That's just the thing. That persons discovering led to the inventing of the Seal Tattoos. By using Ink to draw a seal on themselves they were able to make it so that by just focusing a little bit of chakra into the tattoo, the tattoo will force the person's chakra to mold in the shape required to perform the Jutsu with their own chakra. Unfortunately through this means you could only use as many Jutsu as tattoos you were able to put on your body. Around one hundred years later the first hand seal was discovered, that's now getting too far ahead of myself. What I have here," Naruto walked closer to the teachers' desk and pulled up his right sleeve to show them the inside of his wrist. "is a temporary Seal Tattoo that I made myself. By charging my chakra into it and focusing on the parameters I wanted I'll be able to make the clones without using any seals. In order to make the seal though I had to do several cross references on how hand seals mold chakra, along with which ones are necessary and how each line in the seal that I made will mold chakra in the same way as the appropriate hand seal would. I used a really diluted ink though, so this tattoo only has one use before it will fade away due to the chakra exposure. Besides, I don't have the things necessary to make a permanent tattoo. I don't plan on relying on Bunshin-no-jutsu anyways."

Iruka and Mizuki were only able to blink as they took all of that information in they were both pretty impressed with the information that was passed to them by their student. This would be one lesson that would be relayed to the Hokage later to see what he would have to say about it.

"Well, I don't see why we wouldn't be able to allow this. He would still be performing the technique." This was said by Mizuki. After a bit of thought and staring at the temporary tattoo, Iruka gave his answer as well.

"Sure, I guess. With your technicality that normally doesn't allow you to use Bunshin-no-jutsu I guess I can make this count since you did all of that extra research."

"Alright!" This was shouted by an enthusiastic Naruto as he hopped by to the place where he was to perform the jutsu. Naruto charged his left index finger to the tattoo and mumbling the name of the jutsu to himself.

Two clones later, the teachers congratulated Naruto on a job well done and Naruto walked out of the class room a very happy person.

OoOoO

Chapter 1 end.

OoOoO

AN: Alright, finally done this chapter. I'd like to apologize to those of you I promised that this chapter would be out by the end of last weekend. I had all but the last part written but then my father had to be rushed to the hospital in Calgary for emergency surgery. My family and I spent most of the week there and I was never able to continue working on the story. Now that I am back to writing, I will move on from here straight into the next chapter which will hopefully be complete by tomorrow or on Monday. Again I'd like to thank all of those who have reviewed. I must say that I never once expected any of my stories to hit 25 reviews from such a short prologue. It is great inspiration to know that I got such positive feedback from all of you. Thank you.

Before I forget, I need to give out some credit to where it's due. The history of hand seals that I described was not my own idea. I got the idea (though I might've edited it a little bit) from Halo2freak007 and use his theorem with his permission. Thanks again Halo2freak007.

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Warning!!! The next section is a brief preview of what's to happen in the next chapter. Those of you who don't want to spoil any small surprises (I am keeping the preview vague). Just ignore the last bit after this. You have been warned.

OoOoO

Next time on Za Kaze Shokkou:

Naruto is finally assigned to his three man cell, and what is this? Naruto isn't with Sakura or Sasuke. Apparently the Hokage decided to, with the aid of Iruka, personally create the teams this for this year's graduating class. Apparently instead of deciding teams on marks, they have decided to create teams based on the students' personalities and how each one of them may be able to aid the development of their team mates.

We also meet their sensei who is apparently one who is really experienced in teaching younger ninja's, who will put the team to the test with his version of the true Gennin Exam.


	3. 2: Meeting Sensei

AN: I noticed from some of your reviews that some of you think that Naruto seems to be a little too smart in this story. What I have to say to that is that; yes, he is much smarter. It is only that he is smarter than he was in cannon. This may include being smarter then an academy student should be (never mind gennin or chuunin as well) but his intelligence when it comes to the ninja arts is about low-mid juunin. As for the advanced research on the Tattoo seals, anyone who bothered to research into that could have come up with the same thing. It is just that since Naruto has the complication that throws off the chakra balance while trying to make Bunshin, Naruto wound up researching hand seals and other possible ways that he could do it instead of fighting a lost battle against his furry little problem that he doesn't know about. I also stated that it took Naruto MONTHS to do this. It's not like he just picked a random book and made the tattoo in five minutes flat. Now that would be too smart. Naruto isn't overpowered in this either. Again, he is stronger then he should be, but that is because he started his self-research and training at the age of six and by going in the directions of what he realized his strengths are he as opposed to how a clan would try to force someone to grow just in one way (an example of this is Hinata, who is not all that great in the family taijutsu but has a lot of potential to become an excellent med-nin) trained in solely his strengths. This means that Naruto has excellent chakra control, a hell of a lot more chakra then he should (he did train in nearly purely Ninjutsu with a little Genjutsu thrown in there) and an understanding of chakra energies that very few have. He only has basic Taijutsu practice though so that is his one blaring weakness along with his lack of battle experience. He is quite physically fit though. Who wouldn't be from running away from chuunin and jounin all the time after pranks? That last part also encouraged Naruto to invent his Tenku Saraida technique. Anyways, that is enough blabbering from me. Now we move onto the story.

OoOoO

Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P

Also, due to a review by 'Random Reader'; an anonymous reviewer who thought that the theorem for the origin of hand seals and Seal Tattoo's was mine, I will state this here as well. The theorem for the origin of Hand Seals was not my original idea. That idea came from one of my current favorite fanfics, 'Hyuuga Naruto' written by Halo2freak007. I got his permission to use the idea and I bent it around a little bit to fit my story. I do thank 'Random Reader' though for the compliment though it should be pointed elsewhere.

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

OoOoO

"**_Beep, beep, beep, beep, bee…. Ker-smash."_**

And alas arrived the death of yet another perfectly normal alarm clock this time by an unseen instrument, which seems to be held like a sword in the hands of an awakening Uzumaki Naruto. Grumbling to himself, Naruto got up from his bed and still in his half awake state swept the broken clock into the garbage can along with the remains of four other alarm clocks. He would repair them again later on.

With that out of the way, Naruto's day started like any other day for him. This includes the morning cold shower (God, he hated the owner of the building sometimes), eating his semi-healthy breakfast of rice and a few vegetables mixed into his cupped ramen while reviewing some of his scrolls on anything he was able to find over the years chakra related, putting on his ugly orange jumpsuit (the one he had to debate with himself about painting a bulls-eye on the back of for added effect but decided it would be a little too much), and refilling his water bottle that he kept in his kunai pouch for whenever he happened to need some for a water jutsu (or when he was just plain thirsty of course), and then finally starting to make his way to the academy while ignoring the glares and low murmurings about the young demon.

OoOoO

Hyuuga Hinata was having a good day. She woke up on her own this morning an hour early, had a quiet breakfast, didn't get put down by her father (though this was due to not seeing him), and had a nice leisurely walk around Konoha before walking into the classroom at the academy twenty minutes early to discover that Naruto was already there talking to Shikamaru and Chouji about possible teams and how different skills and aspects would work in a battle and how certain ones might be used to counter specific skills that they knew about. It always seemed to her that Naruto and Shikamaru always got into those conversations whenever one of them learned something new or came up with a new idea. It was always fascinating to hear what they would talk about. Hinata giggled to herself when she suddenly realized that these conversations were the only things Shikamaru actually put effort into other then playing shougi, and cloud-watching even if it was in that lazy way that he did everything.

Iruka sat at the teacher's desk watching the two new ninjas talk adamantly with a small smile on his face. He was glad to see that it seemed that Naruto had two people who looked to him as something other then the prankster Naruto. Well that was until the discussion the other day before the test. It seemed that Naruto's classmates wound up seeing a slight glimpse into a deeper Naruto, and Iruka couldn't help but notice that more people were starting to listen when he said something. He even saw Sasuke trying to stealthily follow Naruto after school yesterday though that was ruined when a gaggle of fan girls came along and ruined his hard worked cover, which resulted in a Naruto who couldn't stop laughing while watching Sasuke run away. Sometimes Iruka could swear that those fan girls had bloodhound blood in them. They were always able to track Sasuke down no matter what he did.

When the sound of the door opening rang through the room, the five present turned and stopped all conversations as the volume in the class suddenly shot up from the chattering students who were starting to walk into the room.

OoOoO

After five more minutes of waiting for the rest to show up while kicking out the three failed students who thought they belonged there Iruka started up the class.

"Good morning to all of you, and congratulations on making it to the Gennin rank." Iruka smiled to the twenty-seven children in the room before continuing. "Now I know that all of you must be excited to hear who your teams are, so I'll be cutting the chitchat short." A few chuckles and giggles went in here. "Since six teams from the last two years are still in active duty we will be skipping those team numbers. For Team Seven, we will have Aburame Shino, Haruno Sakura, and Inuzuka Kiba. Your Jounin Sensei will be Yuuhi Kurenai, and she will be here this afternoon. Team Eight will be Akimichi Chouji, Uchiha Sasuke, and Yamanaka Ino. Your Jounin Sensei will be Hatake Kakashi. He will also be here this afternoon. And Team Nine will be Hyuuga Hinata, Nara Shikamaru, and Uzumaki Naruto. Your Jounin Sensei is Sarutobi Asuma, who will be here this afternoon along with the other two sensei said so far." Iruka took a quick sip of water before continuing. "Now your three teams are dismissed until after lunch since your instructors won't be here until then. As soon as you're gone I will read off the six other teams since their instructors are already waiting outside of the classroom. You nine are now dismissed, and congratulations again."

OoOoO

In the Hokage's office the three Jounin that were missing from outside the classroom were sitting in front of the Hokage watching along with the old man through the crystal ball at their new charges. They were also holding three folders each. Those were the files on each of the children.

Hatake Kakashi was the furthest in the back just reading his folders with a hard to see confused expression on his face. "Pardon me Hokage-same." He spoke up bringing everyone's attention to him. "I can understand for sure why you'd want the young Uchiha with me, but I don't understand how I would be able to turn this squad into an Assassination team as you've asked me to."

"Kakashi, as you've read the Uchiha has a natural talent for fire jutsu which nearly all of them are designed to specifically kill as you know. As for young Yamanaka, her families mind Jutsus should be perfect for causing confusion in many situations where distractions might be necessary or in order to make it look like another person did the kill. The fact that her records also show that she has the potential to become a genjutsu mistress and there is a person who has a higher potential then Sasuke in the assassination field. And for Chouji, if you read a little bit further into his records there you'll see that next to Shino and Hinata, he got the highest marks in the stealth part of the lessons. That along with his taijutsu skills they could very well make a very balanced team that through the teamwork I know you very well pride yourself with, they can become a top-notch assassination squad."

"While I'm on the subject: Kurenai, what I'd like to see you try and do with your squad is to create a tracking squad. I'm sure you can see Kiba and Shino fitting into the roll well, but Sakura was also put in there because of her very high chakra control, an almost natural talent for Genjutsu and the knowledge that she has on that subject as well as trapping I believe that she will fit right in though she doesn't have as high of a potential as a tracker as her team mates do through their bloodlines."

"And Asuma, I would like you to create an Assault squad out of your three pupils. At first glance it would appear that Ino and Sasuke would be better fit to go into this squad, but I decided on Hinata and Shikamaru to go into this squad due to the friendship that these three already have as well as their independent strengths and weaknesses."

"Despite her lack of confidence, Hinata is an excellent Taijutsu user. She also has the most potential out of the graduates this year as a medical ninja. I've even heard that she's been practicing making healing balms. Along with a high rating in chakra control for her age and her bloodline limit she would make an excellent frontlines ninja. You could probably teach her more ninjutsu though and maybe get her to expand on her Taijutsu by teaching her another style. Maybe even seek Gai's help for some advice there." Kakashi choked on a cough at that last statement. "If you're worried about what her clan will say, then don't. I've already talked to Hiashi, and he's told me in complete confidence in himself that he doesn't care what you do with her. In his eyes she's a failure in every way." Sarutobi chuckled to himself. "I guess we'll have to prove him wrong."

Nara Shikamaru is actually the worst case of the three. He has the highest I.Q. among his fellow graduates and a strong ability to learn. Unfortunately though, he doesn't seem to have any inspiration to become better. I'm hoping that by being with Naruto that'll change. I've noticed that Naruto seems to have a natural ability to change the people around him without anybody realizing it at first including himself. Along with his brain smarts, Shikamaru's only other strength seems to be in his family's shadow jutsu. I'm hoping that you'll be able to fill in those gaps and turn him into a more balanced ninja by getting him up to a descent skill level in Taijutsu and going through Jutsu that would be able to help. You could probably enlist Naruto's help in this since he has the highest knowledge of chakra from any academy student in the last twenty years." This statement of Naruto's knowledge shocked the three Jounin.

"Now since we're already talking about him, Uzumaki Naruto. What nearly nobody knows except Iruka and myself is that Naruto has been doing self-studying and training since I taught him how to read at the age of six. He spent the first year of that time just reading on chakra and how it is used. He also taught himself two of the three academy techniques and learned both the wall walking and water walking chakra control exercises. The third academy jutsu, he is still unable to do due to an irregularity in his chakra being the Kyuubi inside of him. At the beginning of his second year of studies Naruto came to me asking for one of these elemental trait papers. When he pumped some chakra into it right there we discovered he had an affinity to wind style jutsu. That is one of the reasons I want him with you Asuma. You two could compare notes and probably learn lots from each other." Asuma nodded to this. "A week later I got him a training battlefan as a birthday gift and in the next six months he learned several Jutsu involving the fan including Kazeitachi. At this point he got tired of carrying the fan all day and quit training with it while he learned how to seal items into scrolls. So don't be surprised if you see him carrying several scrolls. They're either things he has sealed or notes that he has made over the years. After that he started teaching himself to manipulate air with his chakra without using Jutsu. I was quite surprised when he learned that within the rest of that year. I personally thought it would've taken him at least four or five years. On his third year he started balancing other types of jutsu in his arsenal. So he has learned approximately three fire jutsu, two water, four earth, one lightning and a few genjutsu. During his third year he also actually created a chakra control exercise that he is using daily to this day. The last three years till now he spent furthering his seal-less control of wind and creating his own Jutsu. Even though he does have all of this at his disposal, he is sorely lacking in Taijutsu. He only knows what is needed of the academy though he has gained a high stamina and chakra stamina rating through his use of pranks and the resulting chases. I must say he is one fast little bugger though, considering that I'm one of only three people in this village who can catch him when he's going full speed." This last reason caused the three others in the room to blink. "The other two though they've never tried themselves I'd believe to be Kakashi and Gai. As for Naruto's Taijutsu I think you should do the same as with Hinata and possibly Shikamaru. Sic Gai on them." This caused Kakashi to chuckle to himself from just the mental image of it. "Naruto will also probably be a big part in fixing his two team mates major faults, them being Hinata's lack of confidence and Shikamaru's lack of inspiration. I believe that those three have the potential to become the strongest ninja squad Konoha has seen in a long time. They could possibly become the next Sannin." As Sarutobi said the last sentence he looked to the clock on the wall.

"Ah, I'm sorry for taking so much of your time. It is now time to head to the academy I believe." With bows, the three Jounin took their dismissal and walked out of the room. Asuma and Kurenai headed for the academy while Kakashi slipped away from the others and went to who knows where.

OoOoO

After a quiet lunch, Hinata, Naruto and Shikamaru in the classroom with the other graduates chatting.

"So Naruto, how did you pass the test? Last time I checked you weren't able to do Bunshin-no-jutsu due to a slight problem with your chakra." Kiba spoke up silencing other conversations since they were also curious. Naruto put his hand on his chin and with a large grin on his face just said one thing.

"I just did a little bit of Reverse Engineering."

"So you still managed to do the Bunshin then?"

"Yep, it took me the last four months to discover how to do it, but now I know how I can actually perform any number of techniques without molding the chakra myself. I'm not going to explain it to you guys now; I think most of you can learn a lot though by researching the origin of hand seals. That is all I will say about it. After all, this is not something I can just explain to you how to do. After all it is something that must be learned for your self. I could give you the rundown on it, but that would spoil half of the fun of learning it. The only people I'm going to tell what to look for are my team mates." This got mixed reactions from the others, which caused Naruto to burst out laughing.

OoOoO

Asuma and Kurenai stood leaning against the wall outside of the classroom listening in on what they were talking about. Asuma had a huge grin and was barely holding in his laughter while Kurenai was smiling and let out a small giggle when Naruto finished talking. After collecting himself, Asuma stood back up from the wall and turned to Kurenai.

"Well, shall we interrupt Naruto's bit of fun now?" Kurenai stood from the wall now as well turning to face Asuma.

"I don't see why not, you evil little man."

"So now I'm little, huh?" This brought a slight curve to Kurenai's lips as she turned and opened the door to walk in.

OoOoO

"Alright." Asuma started with a clap of his hands to gain everyone's attention. "Team seven this is Yuuhi Kurenai, your new Jounin instructor and I am Sarutobi Asuma, team nine's new instructor. We are all going to be together for a long time, so I hope you get used to it." The last statement caused Hinata and Naruto to gulp while Shikamaru mumbled about troublesome people and their strict sounding introductions. "Now team nine, I'd like you to meet me by the lone swing in the field just outside of the academy in five minutes, pronto." With that he disappeared.

"Team seven; I want you to meet me at training field three in half an hour." Then she also disappeared.

The six members of the two teams briefly looked at each other before saying their goodbyes and heading their separate ways.

OoOoO

Those five minutes found Hinata sitting on the swing, Naruto hanging upside down from a tree branch beside Hinata and Shikamaru lying about on the branch above them watching the clouds.

"So guys, what do you think of Asuma-sensei?" Naruto started off asking.

"Can't really tell yet. We did only hear him talk for about thirty seconds if you remember. Don't you?" Was Shikamaru's lazy reply.

"Hmph, I guess you're right." Naruto said this just before he went into his pouting position, which caused Hinata to giggle quietly to herself. This brought the attention of her teammates to her. "So what about you Hinata?"

She gulped a bit as she started to turn red due to the attention she was now getting from Naruto. This also caused Shikamaru to smirk a little as he noticed the blush. "What about me, Naruto-kun?" When she said this Naruto went into a contemplative pose making it so that Hinata had to hold back another giggle as Shikamaru turned from the sky to watch the two.

"I don't know. What do you think of Asuma-sensei? Can you tell us more about yourself and maybe your skills? You know, anything really. I'd just like to hear you participate in the conversation. You are one of our friends and our teammate after all." That caused the Hyuuga Heiress to go even redder in the face as she started stuttering to herself.

Fortunately for Hinata this was the time that their cigarette smoking sensei chose to show up in a puff of smoke. "Well, don't jump the gun already kids. I guess I should've told you that we'd be doing introductions as soon as I got here." Since he appeared right behind Naruto as he started talking, this caused Naruto to jump right to his feet spinning around to yell at their instructor.

"YOU'RE…"

"Right on time sensei, and I mean right down to the second." Finished Shikamaru, interrupting him. This caused Naruto to glare up into the tree while going into his pouting pose. (You know the one, arms crossed and sticking his lower lip out while squinting his eyes.) Hinata had to stop herself from yelling out 'Kawaii' to the world. After all, it wouldn't be proper of one of her family. Instead she settled for giggling again.

Asuma looked at each of his students in turn. Shikamaru, who was lying about on a tree branch, staring at Naruto with a slight smirk on his face, Naruto, who was still standing with his arms crossed, and glaring up at Shikamaru, and Hinata, who was watching the two while quietly giggling to herself about their reactions. Asuma smiled to himself before speaking again. "I think I'm going to like you three. Now come on, I want each one of you three to tell me a little about yourselves. I want you to tell me your Names, likes and dislikes, dreams for the future, and anything else you think might be important to your teamwork. Let's start off with the shy, giggling girl."

Hinata gulped and blushed in reaction. "Ano, My name is Hyuuga Hinata. I like kind people, and drinking tea. I dislike people who judge people from just their first impressions and hurting others. My dreams for the future are to become a respectful head of my clan, to become a medical ninja, and to earn the respect of a certain individual." She blushed again while glancing lightly away from Naruto. "As for my abilities, I have a little bit of skill in my family taijutsu, though it isn't enough to impress my father, and I also know the three academy Jutsu. I would like to learn more, but my clan is set in thinking that our family taijutsu style is all that we'll ever need so unless given express permission by the clan council, we are not allowed to learn other jutsu or taijutsu styles then what is needed to become gennin." She looked disappointed as she said the last sentence. "And also, I have pretty good chakra control." She added this last bit as an after thought.

"Alright, thank you very much for the little introduction Hinata. Now go ahead, lazy boy." Shikamaru gave a slight scoff while Naruto chuckled, finally giving up on the glare.

"My name is Nara Shikamaru. I like cloud watching, playing shogi, and being lazy." Insert a joking glare at Naruto here. "I dislike loud noises and annoying people. Though I can stand those things if they're a part of a really interesting conversation. My dreams for the future are to become an average ninja, get married, and to have a small family with well-behaved children that won't be too troublesome." Naruto laughed loudly at the last part earning another slight glare from Shikamaru. "I must say that my genjutsu and taijutsu absolutely suck, though my ninjutsu is average. The only ninja skills that I excel in are stealth, infiltration, information gathering, and my family's shadow jutsu, though they are often used for either infiltration, distraction, or assassination."

"Very good, it seems to me that you actually have a few more skills than what I read in your student profile. I look forward to seeing what you and Hinata can do. Now, on to our little prankster."

"Who's the little one?" Naruto looked back and forth between both Hinata and Shikamaru, realizing that he had to look up slightly to see either one in the eye. "HEY!"

"Just get on with your turn Naruto. Sheesh, so troublesome." Guess who.

"Oh shut it Shika." Suddenly Naruto was back up to his hyper self. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like playing pranks, studying anything I can find on chakra and talking over what I learn with Shika here, and ramen. I dislike bullies, closed minded idiots who refuse to see past an image, and the three minutes it takes for ramen to cook in the boiling water. My dream for the future is to become Hokage. But, lo and behold, I actually have a set of more realistic goals to obtain, for you see a dream is only a dream until you've obtained it. Once you've obtained the dream then what is there left to do with you life, and you'll never live satisfied." The little about Naruto's views on dreams surprised the three around him. When Naruto saw the surprised looks he only grinned and continued. "My goals for the future are to become a respected Jounin, to get married to a nice girl, and to have a family that I can raise and make sure that they never have to grow up alone like I have had to so far." As Naruto finished this sentence he briefly had a far away look in his eyes, but he quickly shook it off and continued. "Now as for my skills, I'd have to say that I'm about as skilled in taijutsu as Shika here is. In other words, only as good as was necessary to pass. I chose to focus on other things. As I said before, I enjoy studying anything chakra related that I can get my hands on. What this means is that I have due to several chakra control exercises that I know and have been practicing for a long time I have, what according to a test that Iruka-sensei had me do in private, is mid to high chuunin chakra control, and I'm damn proud of that." One eyebrow per listener went up here. "I also have a small library of ninjutsu that I can perform as well as with the discovery of my elemental affinity I have created a few jutsu of my own as well as a highly advanced chakra control exercise that I do whenever I can. I gave that exercise a jutsu name though, so that people who see me performing it will get the wrong idea. I only have base type skills in genjutsu, it's just that with my knowledge of chakra and practice through pranks where I rely on shock value to disguise the weak genjutsu, I have practiced quite a bit. I also am somewhat well-versed in the usage of battle fans, and I also have knowledge of how to seal items and supplies into scrolls. I do so, so that I don't have to carry a huge ass fan on my back all day. Talking with Iruka, we've managed to classify the type of ninja I am. With which jutsu I do know, I have been officially classified as a wind elemental medium to long range combat specialist. I look forward to working with the three of you just fine." Naruto slapped his huge fox like grin on his face as he wrapped up and watched silently laughing as the other three finished digesting all of what Naruto said.

Asuma blinked a few times as he finished taking in Naruto's words, and decided to speak up once he noticed that Hinata and Shikamaru were finished as well.

"That was very informative Naruto. I do have one question for you though. Do you have your sealing scrolls with you now?" When Naruto nodded he continued. "Do you mind if we were to see your fan?"

"Um, both of them sensei?" Upon Asuma's raised eyebrow and nod, Naruto unzipped his orange jumpsuit a little bit and reached in pulling out a scroll with one hand while his other hand went down to his kunai pouch and pulled out a small handheld fan that was approximately six inches long. After handing the small fan over for Asuma and his teammates to look at Naruto bit his left thumb and did three quick hand seals around the scroll before slamming the scroll on the ground while mumbling something under his breath. When the cloud of smoke cleared Naruto stood there with a closed fan that was as long as he was tall. He then handed it to Asuma who got a surprised look on his face when he felt the weight.

"How much does this fan weigh Naruto?"

"It weighs about fifty pounds."

"And, can you carry this around for extended periods of time?"

"All day if necessary."

"Then why do you also have the smaller fan?" Shikamaru asked this time.

"It takes time to pull the large fan from the scroll. I figured that if I was ever in a bind, I can just start using the smaller fan after pulling it from my kunai pouch. I can still perform all of my jutsu that require a fan with that one, but it doesn't pack as much punch and it can't be used as a melee weapon like the large one which I use like a bludgeoning weapon when it is closed." Both Naruto's teammates and his sensei were impressed by the logic of what Naruto said.

"Well then," Asuma started. "I guess that now that introductions are done I am going to dismiss you three. I would like you all to meet me at this address though at 8am tomorrow morning." As he spoke he handed the three of them a piece of paper with an address written down on it. Upon reading the address Hinata blushed again.

"Ano, what are we going to do sensei?" The shy heiress asked after shaking off a realization she had about that particular address.

"Your real gennin exam." After Naruto's resulting yell of 'WHAT!' died down Asuma continued. "What you three did the other day in the academy was really just a test to see if you have the skills necessary to become gennin. Then it is up to the Jounin sensei of each team to test his or her students to see if they'll function properly on the team and if it is worth continuing on training the team, or whether they should be sent back to the academy to learn more. I wouldn't worry too much about it though. I have a feeling that you three aren't going to have that much trouble with it though I do think it'll be entertaining to watch."

During the second half of what Asuma was just saying Naruto had of fallen silent after reading the address on the paper.

"Ano, sensei?" Now it was Naruto's turn to speak quietly which quickly fixated both Hinata and Shikamaru's attention on him since they'd never heard Naruto speak this quietly unless he was mumbling incoherencies to himself. "Why is my address on this peace of paper?"

"Well, that's because the test will be taking place at your apartment Naruto." This earned him a confused look from Shikamaru and a blush from Hinata. "I already ran this by the Hokage Naruto and he said that it was a good idea. I guess I'll give you a heads up on what your test is then." Asuma coughed to clear his throat before continuing. "Your mission for this examination is to live together." This earned him loud 'WHAT!'s from two of his students while Hinata had to stop herself from fainting right there. "I will also be in the home making sure that rules are not broken. Since as a team we'll probably be out on the field a lot after the first few months you'll have to get used to living with and around each other. What is going to happen is that you three will actually be tied together by a rope of ten feet. It will be up to you three what the distances will be between each other. You will eat together, sleep together, you will even do your shopping or food gathering together. The only time you will be allowed to untie the rope is if one of you is going to take a bath, a shower, or if one of you needs to use the toilet. Bath's and showers will be limited to only ten minutes to clean yourself up. I will be there to mediate when it is an appropriate time to untie one of you and watch how you three interact. Depending on how things go, I will decide at midnight of the third night whether or not you three will become my team or not. Are there any questions?"

Both Naruto and Shikamaru shook their heads slightly to indicate that they didn't have any questions to ask, while Hinata looked deep in thought before turning the brightest red either Naruto and Shikamaru had seen her and fell back in a faint. Naruto was quick to catch her with a little mumble of 'What the hell?'. Asuma chuckled to himself a little.

"Well, that's all for today. I'll leave you two to deal with Hinata here, and I will see you at Naruto's apartment at 8am sharp." With that Asuma disappeared in a poof of smoke leaving Naruto who was trying to wake Hinata up, and Shikamaru who could only watch while murmering to himself about 'trouble sensei and their equally troublesome tests'.

OoOoO

End Chapter.

OoOoO

End AN: Alright, there we go. I finally got around to finishing this chapter. I have to say that I might have had it out sooner if it wasn't for the fact that I was having so much trouble writing this last little scene. I am so horrible at writing introductions. I hope I did a good job. I was originally going to put in the test here as well, but I decided to go against it and actually decided to do this as a little vote. Next chapter, shall I do it as the test? If this path is voted for then the next chapter will be a while yet, because I know as a diehard fact that I will have trouble writing specific parts. The second option is to continue onto afterwards and have the next chapter be the continuation of up to the point where they get their first C-rank mission. If the second option is the winner, then there will be a couple flashbacks somewhere along the line that highlight some of the funnier parts of the test. This way we'll be skipping over some of the more boring parts of the chapter, and I won't have to worry about writing out the whole plot for the test and save myself some trouble which will result in the next chapter coming out quicker.

So here is the poll in a more general POV.

The next chapter will either be A.) Asuma's test where the three gennin are living together for three days, and go through the troubles, frustrations, and bonding moments that the test will exhibit, or B.) Skip the test and go onto the time between the end of the test and the team's first C-rank mission.

The choice is up to all of you and the poll will only be on from today, Thursday Oct. 19th to Sunday Oct. 22nd. Place your votes in PM's please unless you're giving a proper review at the same time. This means I don't want to see a review appear that says something like this. 'I vote for option B.' I would like to keep the review page to just that, reviews. I don't mind if you throw in your vote as an additional comment though.

I thank you all for reading and hope you all enjoyed. Please review, and I look forward to seeing the results of the vote and what I'll be doing. Adios for now.

P.S. sorry for the reposts, I both times I'd of accidentally made typo's in the end AN as to what the poll is about. I meant to say that it's the test, not training. Sorry for any inconvenience.


	4. 3: Back up needed Old Man Tazuna

Alright now, votes kept coming at me even after the deadline for when I'd quit counting votes and I decided not to go through the effort of figuring out which ones arrived in time. Due to my lazy behavior, I have been told by some friends that I can be a lot like Shikamaru from the manga sometimes, I have just tallied up all of the votes instead and it ended with Option B being the victor by five votes. So now I'll quit rambling (aka: stalling for time) and get onto the story.

OoOoO

Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P

Okay, a reviewer; pardon me for forgetting his name, said in a review that even though this story is under the Naru/Temari category he thinks that the chances of that are ruined now that I put Hinata on Naruto's team. I will state this now: That is not true. This story is going to be Naru/Temari, that just isn't going to be right away. Any major relationship parts will not show up until later on in the story. Like after a couple years when Naruto comes back from his three year training trip. Hinata still has feelings for Naruto, but she'll grow to love someone else. I haven't made up my mind on whom yet, but it'll be one of two people that I'm not going to state now.

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

OoOoO

Two months and exactly one hundred D-rank missions had gone past since Team Nine was officially formed under the Jounin, Sarutobi Asuma. Team Nine was currently standing in front of the Hokage's office waiting for their new assignment. The team as a whole had of been patient so far with all of the stupid D-rank missions that they had gotten so far. From doing gardening to finding the Daimyos wife's lost cat, the team had of done pretty well all of the different varieties of D-rank missions that they could of received, several of them multiple times (especially finding that irritating cat).

"Well it seems that your team is finally ready for a tougher mission." The Hokage said starting the conversation.

With that declaration, Team Nine let out a collective sigh of relief to which the Hokage looked on amused.

"Alright then, for your first C-rank mission you will be escorting the captain of a team of bridge builders to the land of the waves. There you will continue to protect the client until such a time as the bridge he is working on is complete. At that time, you will return to Konoha for a one week rest before you will be put back on the 'Active Ninja' list, and you will continue missions. Are there any questions?" When there was no reply, the Hokage called out to a side door. "You can let the client in now."

The team did a quick one-over of their client, and they all came to the same conclusion. 'Old and Drunk'. The tall, white-haired old man looked over the team and pointing at them loudly declared. "I am Tazuna, the super bridge builder. Are these brats really going to be able to protect me?"

Sarutobi chuckled when he noticed the glare that Naruto sent at the man with just enough killing intent to freeze him in his tracks. "Yes, I'm sure that this team of Genin will be enough to serve your purposes Tazuna-san. This is one of the best teams we have available at this time. They should be more then enough to protect you from any bandits that may decide that they want your head or wallet."

Asuma clapped his hands to get his teams attention. This also had the effect of releasing Tazuna from Naruto's little bit of killing intent since Naruto turned to his sensei. "We will meet in a half hour at the west gate. Pack supplies for about one month's worth of time away from Konoha. You are dismissed." When he finished the statement Naruto simply disappeared out of the window while his teammates shook their heads at his antics, and walked out the door.

OoOoO

It was only ten minutes before Asuma and Tazuna arrived at the gate to see Naruto leaning against the wall next to the gate with his eyes closed. Asuma looked over at the client before quietly chuckling to himself when he saw that Tazuna was puzzled by the lack of visible supplies on Naruto.

"Hey brat, didn't you hear what your sensei said about packing for this trip?" Tazuna called out as he and Asuma walked the last short stretch to the gate.

"Yeah, I did. I didn't need to pack anything so I came straight to the gate, old-timer." Naruto replied as he opened his eyes to look at Tazuna. Tazuna fumed for a few seconds at Naruto's disrespectful response.

"Didn't anyone teach you to respect your elders, brat?" Was the all-but yelled response from Tazuna.

"Respect is earned, not given old timer." Naruto nonchalantly replied while closing his eyes again and waving his right hand in Tazuna's direction.

"The nerve of that…" Tazuna never finished his statement since he was interrupted by Asuma.

"I'm sorry sir, but I happen to agree with Naruto on his view of this matter. He is just showing you the same respect as you have shown him so far. Who knows," Asuma punctuated this sentence by shrugging his shoulders. "If you start to show some respect to him and his teammates then he might start returning the same courtesy."

Tazuna huffed for a few seconds while switching his gaze back and forth between Asuma and Naruto. Then he stopped and a small smirk that Asuma found spookily similar to the one that Naruto was currently wearing.

"So let's get this straight brat. Right now I don't respect you, and you don't respect me." At this point the smirks on Naruto and Tazuna's faces grew a little larger.

"**So that puts us on neutral ground."** They both finished at the same time.

"So then brat, what's your name?"

"Uzumaki Naruto and you better remember it, because one day I will be famous throughout the five shinobi nations. Got that old-timer?"

"We'll see about that brat."

'Why do I get the feeling that these two are a little too similar?' Was all Asuma could think as he looked back and forth between his two smirking companions while sweatdropping.

OoOoO

It has been half a day since the trip started, and the majority of team nine was bored. Shikamaru walked along staring up at the clouds, Hinata was thinking to herself as she stared at her feet, Asuma and Tazuna were talking quietly amongst themselves about the bridge Tazuna was building, and Naruto had his face buried in a three foot scroll he held in front of himself with one hand. Naruto suddenly released one hand from the scroll and grabbed a pen from one of his utility pouches and started writing on the scroll. That grabbed Tazuna's attention. He decided to act on his curiosity.

"Hey, brat?"

"What now old timer?" The rest of the group sighed at what was quickly becoming a tiring game between the two.

"Shouldn't you be using a hard surface to write on?"

Naruto blinked for a second before shrugging.

"I haven't had to for quite a few years now."

"What are you doing anyways?" That question returned the others attention back to the two.

"You think that I'm not willing to help my teammates become stronger or something?"

"I wouldn't know, but I guess that makes sense. What does writing in a scroll have to do with that anyways?" As Tazuna said this the shinobi team noticed a puddle that shouldn't be there.

"A little bit of this, and a little bit of that." 'Like hell, I'm going to explain things with enemy shinobi around.' As Naruto said that he gave his pen a quick spin as he put it back in his utility belt, then he gave his hand holding the scroll a flick which quickly closed it. He then proceeded to switch that scroll with another one in his utility belt. It was three handseals around the scroll later that there was a poof of smoke that suddenly had a Naruto wielding a giant fan charging out of it.

It was just as Naruto was reaching the puddle that it suddenly disappeared as two ninjas wearing spiked gauntlets on opposing hands appeared and blocked Naruto's strike with a cross guard (that's crossing the gauntlets between them) before finding that they were forced to a knee each by the force of the strike.

As Naruto's blow struck the gauntlets, a shadow launched from Shikamaru's feet capturing the opponents in the shadow bind technique while Hinata charged underneath the two enemy-nins' arms to quickly disable the tenketsu in each of their shoulders just before Shikamaru's shadow captured the two.

As Asuma walked over to drag the two mist shinobi into the bushes Naruto turned back to Asuma with a smirk on his face. "I noticed the genjutsu that those two had since it hasn't rained around here in weeks. When I noticed it I started writing out a quick plan on the scroll since I knew that Hinata and Shikamaru were in a position that they'd be able to see what I wrote down. I'm just going to erase it from the scroll anyways.

It was at this time that Asuma walked out of the bushes. "Alright team, we now have a choice to make." As he said this he gave Tazuna a quick glare that made Tazuna start to sweat. The young shinobi quickly turned to their sensei to listen to what he had to say. "I just found out from our little friends who are now tied up to a tree that they were hired along with two other missing-nin to assassinate our client here. They were tight lipped about their other two friends and their client, but I was able to find out that one of them is a jounin ranked ninja and that the other one never had a real ninja rank but is just as dangerous as the jounin. This increases the rank of our mission up to the range of high-B to low-A rank. Our options are as follows: first option is to continue this mission, knowing the dangers while making sure that we get a message to the Hokage that we will need backup, this will also result in us receiving a truthful reason as to why our client lied to us and that as penalty we will be collecting a double-fee from what our Hokage decides the rank of the mission is as a penalty. Since the office has come across a situation like this one before where the client lied because they couldn't afford a mission, they decided to make a penalty system for any future cases that will be payed up by the clientele as soon as they are able to. The second option is to turn around and go home.

"It may be troublesome, but I'd rather continue then have to face up to my mother's nagging again so soon." Shikamaru's statement lightened up the tense atmosphere around the shinobi a little bit.

"I agree with Shikamaru. I would like to continue the mission. I'll give you one of my blank scrolls Asuma-sensei, then you can write out a letter to the Hokage that I'll quickly dash back to town. Then I can return with the reinforcements if he sends them right away. Either way, I will be back as quickly as possible with the news of what the old man says." Naruto loudly declared as he started fishing on his person for one of the few black scrolls he had.

"How about you Hinata? If you say no, then we'll head back right away." Asuma turned and asked Hinata.

Hinata looked over at Tazuna who was at the time a very pitiful sight. He looked to be at the brink of losing hope as he looked at her.

"Ano, I agree that we should send Naruto back with the message first." Upon hearing this Tazuna let out a sigh of relief. Asuma smiled. He was proud of his students for realizing how important this must've been to their client.

"Alright then, get me that blank scroll you were talking about Naruto, and then we'll send you back to Konoha. How long do you think it'll take you to get there?"

"About fifteen minutes. I'm can't say how long it'll be before I get back though." Naruto answered as he finally found the blank scroll and handed it along with his pen to Asuma. This left Tazuna gaping.

After Asuma finished writing his letter he handed it over to Naruto who took a brief second to concentrate before Tazuna saw Naruto visibly rise off of the ground an inch then proceeded in racing back along the way they came faster then Tazuna had seen anybody move in his life.

OoOoO

Hatake Kakashi was bored. It was four hours ago that he started a shift assisting the two standard chuunin who always guarded the western gate of Konoha. It was years ago that the Hokage decided that there would always be a jounin assisting in gate guard duties at all times. Kakashi sighed to himself wondering for the third time that hour as to why he ever quit ANBU. His three students were quite a pack of trouble. Uchiha Sasuke was as much of a stuck-up, revenge consumed boy as Kakashi expected him to be. He didn't like though that he wound up being stuck with an annoying fan girl, and an overweight child with little confidence in himself as the other members of his team. He did have to admit that those two did have some descent skills, especially the teamwork between the two even though they (at least Chouji) argued that they would've been better in teamwork with the lazy genius Shikamaru. Speaking of his team, he couldn't help but wonder but wonder what the lucky buggers were doing with their day off.

It was then that he sensed a small spike of chakra approaching quickly from what he estimated to be one kilometer outside of the gates out of his sight. He stood up from his corner, putting away his book and stepped out of the guard house that was just outside of the gate to watch whoever was approaching so quickly. When he realized that the chakra signature was just out of his sight and not showing any signs of slowing down he decided to pull out a kunai in case it was a hostile threat. It was only a couple more seconds before he saw what appeared to be an orange and blonde projectile flying in his direction. Kakashi couldn't help but be impressed by the large trail of dust that was rising behind the figure up to ten feet in the air. It was only a few seconds later that the figure stopped directly in front of him where the dust trail kept blowing past to run into the closed gate where the dust cloud raised higher into the air before falling around Kakashi and the stationary boy he now recognized as Uzumaki Naruto.

"Is there something I could help you with Uzumaki-san?" Kakashi asked while leaning toward the boy wearing one of his upside-down U eye smiles.

That temporarily disturbed Naruto so it took him a moment to remember what he was doing. When he did he quickly shook his head to clear his thoughts before saluting the jounin. "Uzumaki Naruto here to deliver a request to the Hokage for an additional team for a C turned B or higher ranked mission."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow hearing Naruto's respectful tone. 'It must be the situation by the sounds of things.' "Alright Uzumaki, I will personally accompany you to the Hokage's office where I will request for my team to join your own so that we may get back to your team ASAP. Please follow me." 'Now let's see if the rumors about his speed are true.' With that thought Kakashi took off at what for him was a stridden combat pace. To his surprise Naruto was keeping up, even if just barely.

OoOoO

The Hokage was bored. Unfortunately for him, this was a far more frequent turn of events for him then it was for those that wound up at guard duty since they did it in shifts while the Hokage was signing paperwork and doing other miscellaneous things in his office from sunrise to sun fall. Because of these circumstances he was pleasantly surprised to have an interruption in the form of Hatake Kakashi walking into his office. That was until he saw Naruto walk in behind the jounin.

"Report," was the Hokage's starting comment.

Naruto gave the Hokage a quick salute before stepping forward and handing a scroll to the old man. "Uzumaki Naruto here with a report from Sarutobi Asuma, captain of Team Nine sir."

Sarutobi quickly read over the scroll before closing it and leaning on his desk clearly thinking through what he just read.

"Excuse me Hokage-sama. Today is normally my team's day off from doing missions, but if you want to get a team out quickly then I can assemble my team and have them ready to go within the hour." Normally Kakashi wouldn't worry about being in a rush over things, but even he knew it was serious when a shinobi was sent back to request reinforcements for a mission.

Sarutobi looked at Kakashi for a second before nodding his assent. "Have your team at the west gate in forty-five minutes. Tell them to pack for a one month mission. Uzumaki-san will be waiting for you there. And here Naruto," Here the Hokage tossed Naruto a new blank scroll surprising Kakashi. "To replace the blank scroll your sensei used to write his letter."

"Thank you, sir."

OoOoO

Sasuke was walking on his way towards the western gate with a small backpack full of camping supplies on his back. He didn't know whether to be upset or excited by what his sensei told him fifteen minutes ago. His team had their first higher ranked mission. He thought it was only a C-ranked mission considering that his lazy sensei didn't bother to tell them the rank. He'd of just decided to settle on being quietly excited when he noticed who was leaning against the wall next to the gate. It'd of been quite a while since he had seen Naruto. The only reason why he bothered to remember his name was because Naruto always got on his nerves with how he was, what was obvious to Sasuke, more intelligent than nearly everybody in their graduating class, yet decided not to flaunt it off in order to get second in class (next to himself of course).

Sasuke walked over to lean against the opposite side of the gate from where Naruto was. Naruto glanced out of the corner of his eye at Sasuke and noticed the traveling bag on Sasuke's back. Naruto turned and walked towards Sasuke.

"Are you a member of Hatake Kakashi's team?" The question from the blonde prankster caught Sasuke off guard.

"Yes." He answered with what the casual observer would take to be indifference, but Naruto knew a mask when he saw one.

"I will be escorting your team to the point where my teammates and sensei are waiting for my return. From there we will be continuing a C turned B or higher ranked mission." Everything that Naruto had said to Sasuke so far was said in a professional way. Naruto had of decided that with the seriousness of the situation he would do his best not to annoy his temporary teammate.

"Why did they send you back?"

"We were attacked by two hired missing-nin. My teammates and I were able to take them out, but when Asuma-sensei interrogated them we learned that they were just two of four missing-nin hired to assassinate our client. My sensei sent me back for reinforcements since he learned that the other two missing-nins were more dangerous then the ones we already defeated." Sasuke let the information roll around for a second before he smirked at Naruto.

"So your sensei thinks that your team is too weak to handle it then, huh?" The smirk didn't stay on his face though as he found himself lifted and pressed into the wall by Naruto.

"Let's settle this right now bastard. You shouldn't jump to conclusions like that. What you have obviously failed to grasp is that my sensei may not think that we could handle the mission ourselves, but that doesn't mean that he thinks we are weak. He just knows that we are inexperienced and that it would be better to have back up in order to help handle the situation. It was actually my idea to send for reinforcements so don't go around saying that our sensei doesn't trust us, you got that?" When he finished Naruto put the other boy back on his feet, then took a step back to give Sasuke some room. "Now that I've spoken my mind about your inappropriate comment, I will ignore the fact that you spoke ill of my team. I would advise that until the situation has settled down to a point where things aren't as serious, for you to refrain from any such comments." Here Naruto narrowed his eyes at Sasuke surprising the Uchiha. "I will not tolerate them."

Before Sasuke could reply back with a heated comment, Kakashi showed up just as his other two gennin showed up jogging. "Naruto is correct Sasuke. This is a serious situation and distractions like rivalries will not be tolerated until such a time as the situation has calmed down sufficiently." Here he caught Chouji and Ino's eyes. "This will not be tolerated from anyone. Got that?" Upon seeing his students grasping the seriousness of the situation Kakashi went back to being all smiles again. "Good, now that everyone is here we will proceed to the rendezvous point where we will meet Uzumaki-san's team. On our way Naruto will repeat for Chouji and Ino what he explained to Sasuke and maybe give a few more specifics of his team's situation. Let's go."

OoOoO

It was two hours of tree hopping later that Naruto followed by Team seven showed up where Naruto had of left his team. At first they couldn't see anybody, but that was fixed a few seconds later when Naruto pulled a small fan out of his Kunai pouch and opened it before fanning his face for a few seconds, then loudly snapping it shut.

"Ah, Naruto. You certainly didn't waste any time." Asuma announced his presence as he jumped down from a tree only five feet to the right of the dirt road.

"Where's the client?" Kakashi asked.

"He's up in the tree with Hinata and Shikamaru, who are making sure that he doesn't fall."

Immediately Naruto gave a smirk before turning to the tree his sensei jumped out of. "Having fun up there old timer?" Asuma and two unseen voices groaned aloud at Naruto's loud greeting for Tazuna. This was followed by a quick bark of laughter.

"You don't have a clue what this is like for someone with no Shinobi skills like me, brat." As Tazuna said this, Asuma walked back over to the tree to help their client out of it.

When the whole of both teams and their client were back on the ground they started walking again.

"So Asuma, did you get an I.D. on who the two missing-nin that your cell beat?" Kakashi started off by asking Asuma.

"It took me a few seconds of scanning my BINGO book, but I was able to identify them as the Demon Brothers. They are two ex-chuunins who are C-rank criminals from the Hidden Mist village." Here Asuma snickered. "They were going to try a surprise attack, but my students saw through the genjutsu that they were using and beat them to the punch."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow to his fellow jounin's boasting. "And what, prey tell, was the genjutsu they used?"

"They were hiding in a puddle on the side of the road."

"It hasn't rained here in weeks." Kakashi stated as he looked up at the sky.

"Exactly," was Asuma's one word reply.

OoOoO

Twenty meters off of the left side of the road a masked ninja listened and watched the proceedings. 'I'll have to report this to Zabuza-san.' As he was starting to get up to leave three of the people noticed his presence, though only one of them reacted. The blonde haired boy, looked directly into the ninja's eyes for a second before turning back to his conversation with Tazuna. 'Well that's interesting. I'll have to keep an eye on that boy later. He shouldn't have been able to sense me, never mind pinpoint my exact location that easily.'

OoOoO

A few seconds after the masked ninja jumped away Naruto slowly dropped back to walk between the two jounin. Knowing that the two probably sensed the other ninja as well, Naruto just said what he felt was needed in a quick whisper.

"Hunter-nin, masked looked like a Hidden Mist one, probably here for the Demon Brothers." When he finished he walked back ahead a little bit to start talking to Chouji about how ramen compared to sushi. Little did they know that their assumption of the masked ninja was quite wrong.

OoOoO

End Chapter

OoOoO

A/N: Finally. I apologize to all of you out there who were in eager anticipation of this chapter. (I highly doubt there were that many who were that bad.) Parents can be a horrible thing sometimes. In this case, they were trying to ban me from anything to do with fanfiction (this just led to me going behind their backs when I can, which is why it took me so long. I didn't get all that many chances). I'll probably get a chance to start the next chapter when I wake up, and hopefully I'll be finished before Christmas. Though knowing my luck, that might not happen either. It'll be another two to three chapters before the end of the wave arc, then I was originally planning on going straight to the chuunin exam, but I've decided to stall that for something I think will be more pleasant. I'll be going now before I accidentally say more, so I'll just thank you all for the awesome reviews again. Thank you.


	5. 4: Kill or be killed Arriving in Wave

Okay. There's not much to say this time. I'm not going to throw out any spoilers or anything right now either, so tough luck there. Hmm, anything else I need to say right now…. Ah, just one more thing. Again, I'd like to thank all of you who have sent in reviews, given suggestions, or are just a part of the hits counter for this story. Seeing all of these things is keeping up my optimism for writing this story.

OoOoO

Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

OoOoO

It was just over a weak after the encounter with the demon brothers, and all the members of the two teams stared. There was not much else that they could do when the bridge came into view for the first time. Tazuna and the driver of the boat watched the ninjas' reactions with smug smiles on their faces. Naruto was the first one to say anything, and to the surprise of Team Seven, it wasn't shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Now that's a big bridge…" And so it was. The bridge stood at what could've been estimated to be about twenty five feet tall with supports that were estimated to be ten inches thick.

"It is quite impressive, isn't it?" Tazuna asked while still wearing the smug smile. Naruto and the others turned towards the proud man wearing sweatdrops on the back of their heads. Well, at least the gennin did.

"Biggest bridge I've ever seen." Asuma answered with a nod of his head while turning towards Tazuna.

"I've seen one just as large in Stone Country, but it is impressive nonetheless." Was Kakashi's answer as he went back to his perverted book.

At this point while the other gennin decided to turn back to the bridge for a bit, Naruto decided to pull back out one of his scrolls and read for a bit as Sasuke watched curiously.

OoOoO

A half hour later, the boat finally pulled up to land.

"Well, this is where I leave." The boatman said.

"Thank you for your help." Tazuna said with a small bow.

"Thanks." Chorused some of the others.

Naruto with his head still buried in his scroll just lifted one hand and waved. This caused the boatman to chuckle as he finally turned on his motor and left.

From here the two teams and their client started walking along a trail. After a few minutes Tazuna decided to speak up.

"About an hours walk from here, we will arrive at my home. There we have enough room for all of you, though that will be a tough squeeze unless we do it right."

As the team continued on Sasuke's curiosity finally got the better of him, and he wound up surprising his team mates by starting a conversation.

"What are you reading there Dobe?" Everyone there except Tazuna knew that there was only one person there he referred to by that name. Naruto snorted before answering.

"Not that it's any of your business, but I'm reviewing one of my scrolls on elemental manipulation. I can already manipulate my affinity, but I'm reading how manipulations of other elements work. I figure that in the future it might give me enough insight to help me survive against other elemental manipulators." Kakashi's visible eyebrow rose as he heard this. Other then Asuma, Hinata and Shikamaru, nobody else knew of the difficulty of such a thing, so they didn't react in any way. This was also noticed by Kakashi.

"So how long have you been able to do elemental manipulation Naruto? Most ninja don't have the chakra reserves or control to do that sort of thing until they're at least high-chuunin to mid jounin in rank after all."

"I started when I was seven and a half years old. I finished learning my elemental manipulation by the time I turned eight." Let's just say that Sasuke wasn't the only person blinking at him owlishly. Naruto's team mates never knew that he learned it that fast. Asuma being the only person there to know, or remember in Kakashi's case, that detail. It took the two teams another minute to recover from the shock before everybody continued on.

It was another few minutes of walking in silence until Naruto and Kakashi both thought they heard a slight rustle in the bushes just ahead of the trail. Naruto was the first to react though. He quickly closed his scroll with a snapping noise and threw it in the air as both of his hands went to pouches on each of his legs, both hands were quick to come out throwing one kunai each. Two thunks were heard at the same time as his scroll landed in his hand, which he quickly pocketed. Except for the Jounin's everybody was confused as to Naruto's actions. When they looked back ahead, they saw a white rabbit hop out of the bushes where the Kunai went.

Ino went pale in the face when she saw the rabbit and was just turning to yell at Naruto when Naruto spoke first. "No winter rabbit should be white at this time of year."

That statement caused the two sensei to glance at each other in realization. "EVERYBODY HIT THE GROUND." As Kakashi yelled that he dove to the ground, pulling Tazuna with him. Everybody else got to the ground in their own ways, and just in time too as a huge sword spinning like a saw blade flew over their heads and stuck itself into the tree that the rabbit ran out from under.

As the ninja all quickly got to their feet, a man appeared standing on what they saw to be a very large sword. Asuma and Kakashi recognized the sword as a Zanbatou. The man was tall. Naruto estimated him to be a few inches taller than Kakashi, who was the tallest of the leaf ninja there. He had a messy head of black hair that was held back by a slashed mist headband, the bottom half of his face and his neck were wrapped with bandages to act as a mask. He wore no shirt, a pair of winter-camouflage pants and black ninja sandals. He stared down at the group of ninja and one civilian. He chuckled to himself before speaking aloud.

"Well, I'll be. It's a group of little baby ninjas and two babysitters." He chuckled to himself as Sasuke growled resulting in Kakashi placing his hand on Sasuke's shoulder to stop him from doing anything rash. "Normally I work alone on these missions, but since there are two babysitters I decided to bring a friend." As the man finished his sentence a whistling sound came from behind them causing the group to scatter, with Kakashi grabbing Tazuna before jumping into the nearest tree.

It was a good thing that they moved too, since only seconds after they evacuated the spot it was covered in potholes from exploding kunai. Naruto looked back and forth between the two ninja that had of attacked them so far. The second ninja stood in the center of the trail behind them. He wasn't wearing a ninja uniform that Naruto could see. All that could be seen of the man were cold, green eyes glowing slightly underneath a grey hat, and the rest couldn't be seen underneath a large bulging cloak that he or she (Naruto wasn't sure which) wore. Asuma and Kakashi seemed to have decided to take on one of the ninja each. As they stepped towards their targets Naruto started to get the feeling that there was someone who was staring at the back of his head. Since his back was facing away from both of the enemy ninja, he figured that there must be another person yet. He couldn't feel any hostile intentions yet though so he continued to focus on what was happening with the other two enemy nin's.

"So I see that's it is the infamous Momochi Zabuza, the demon of the hidden mist. Famous for going overboard during his academy test killing his whole graduating class at the age of eight." Kakashi said this as he got a closer look at the missing-nin.

Zabuza just looked like he zoned out for a second before saying something that spooked out all of the leaf ninja. "Ah yes, those were such good memories. The feeling of my classmate's blood running over my hands as I tore out the last ones throat with my bare hands." A shiver ran down not only Naruto's spines, but those of all "Well, that's enough reminiscing. We're here to take out the old man there so I'll have to ask you to step out of the way, or we will have to kill all of you." Naruto and Shikamaru both snorted to that statement. Naruto turned his head from his sideways position to Zabuza.

"You'd just kill us anyways. After all, you don't want us reporting to kiri hunter-nin that you're in this area." Zabuza laughed at Naruto's statement.

"Smart brat, though that intelligence may have just given me a reason to kill you first." With that said, Zabuza charged with surprising speed towards Naruto. Before either jounin sensei could react Zabuza's sword had of already completed the over head slice that would of cut Naruto in half if it hadn't of been dodged with a quick sidestep. "Heh, smart and fast. Maybe my little spy was correct about you possibly being the biggest threat on your team." Naruto's eyebrows rose in surprise, but he didn't have time to dwell on it as he was forced to dodge another attack just before the Zabuza in front of him burst into water from the kunai that Kakashi stuck in it's back.

"Are you alright?" At Naruto's nod Kakashi turned to the lake a short distance away and watched while lifting up his forehead protector to reveal the Sharingan eye as Zabuza quickly went through some seals before mumbling just loud enough for all to hear: "Kirigakure no Jutsu"

The area was then covered in a thick mist and all of the leaf shinobi became nervous. That was until they heard Naruto's voice speak. "One down." Before they felt a large spike of chakra and heard Naruto's voice shout. "TAKE THIS YOU SCUM. SUEHIROGARI, SANJO ZA BOUFUU: GURIDO ITTOU!!!" (AN: translates directly to: Spreading out like an open fan, cutting away the storm: Grid Blade!!!) This was followed by an even larger spike of chakra, and then even though they couldn't see the results of Naruto's technique yet they could hear what sounded like several swords cutting through something before they heard a voice scream that was silenced only half a second later. It was a few seconds before the second effect of the jutsu took place where the mist was pulled away from the area towards where the second missing-nin was.

As the mist finished dissipating, Zabuza could be seen standing on the water with his hands still in a seal, probably shocked into stopping a jutsu half way through, and four mizu-bunshin at different points looking like they were trying to sneak up on the leaf ninja before they were shocked into stopping. That isn't what everyone was looking at though; they were looking between a heavily panting Naruto and what looked like a forest where a lumberjack went crazy. All of the trees in an area that covered a width of twenty meters and traveled for a distance of one hundred meters were literally cut into square pieces no larger than Naruto's fist with the body of the other missing-nin in the same condition. Nobody knew what Naruto did but Naruto himself, but what'd of actually been covered by the mist was a quick construction of a grid of crisscrossing wind blades (think of the wind blade Baki uses in the anime/manga) that was twenty meters tall and twenty meter wide (think like what the lines on a sheet of graph paper looks like). That was Naruto's first chakra burst was. Then as Naruto yelled the name of his technique, he used a much larger burst of chakra in order to propel the grid of wind blades in the Missing-nin's direction. So needless to say this took a hell of a lot of chakra.

"Sorry guys, but I'm burned out for now." Naruto said still panting. It was then that Naruto fainted from chakra exhaustion.

After Naruto fainted the battle went on, but off in the trees fifteen meters away of Naruto's position stood the hunter-nin from before, the nin had a large sweat drop on it's head as it could only stare at the destruction and the fact that it was literally one tree out of range of that devastating attack. 'I hope I don't have to face up to that Jutsu.' Were the Hunter-nin's thoughts on what of just happened. It was a few more seconds before the Hunter-nin was able to snap its attention back to the battle just in time to watch it end just before stepping in to do what was needed.

OoOoO

AN: The one thing that is undecided has come up. And that simple matter is Asuma. The thing is that I don't know much about him. Certainly not enough to put together a fighting style for him anyways. That is why I didn't show the fight scene of Asuma and Kakashi Vs. Zabuza. And this is also where you readers come in. I would like your opinions on what Asuma should be like in a fight. I do want to be able to us him in a fight that is coming up either on the bridge or on their next assignment. That'll depend on whether or not I have a fighting style put together for him or not. Keep in mind that if you make a contribution about your thoughts on his fighting style, I may mix and match parts. Of course I'll give credit where it is due. And I'd like to thank any contributors ahead of time for the help.

Also, I only put this AN here because I wanted to clear up the circumstances for skipping out on that battle now instead of having upset readers before the end of the chapter. You know, minimalizing damage and all that. I thank you for your patience with me.

OoOoO

'Drip' 'Drip' 'Drip'

'Groan' He gave off an audible groan as he joined the land of the living. For as long as Naruto could remember, that annoying dripping noise has always been apart of his waking moments. It was something that was such a constant that he never brought it up. It sounded like water dripping in what he would guess to be a sewer. Sometimes he did have to wonder though.

Naruto opened his eyes. He stared at the roof above him until one thought entered his mind.

'Another unfamiliar ceiling.'

One thing that Naruto had never of told anybody about was the fact that Naruto had of never been able to keep the same apartment. For some reason that he still didn't know, Naruto had of only been able to stay in a single place no longer than three to four months before he would find himself kicked out of the place for no good reason. Then he would have to find another apartment complex that would accept him, sometimes even going back to old ones. Of course whenever he did that he would find that the rent was more expensive and then he'd be kicked out again within the next few months. This continued until he was ten years old, when for some reason the owner of the apartment complex would always seem scared whenever he was around. Nonetheless, he never was kicked out of that place so he continued to live there and always showed kindness to the guy for allowing him to stay.

'Am I in another new apartment? No, wait a second.' Memories of what happened before he fainted from his chakra exhaustion came back to him in a rush. 'I killed.' With that thought Naruto's mood sunk. 'But wait a second. I did what I felt that I had to do to help protect my friends and old man Tazuna from those two jounin.' Naruto raised his hand to his forehead and rubbed. 'Not to mention the fact that I probably wound up scaring the crap out of everybody there.' Naruto chuckled to himself. 'That was one of my best techniques too.' Naruto lay still for a couple more seconds. 'Speaking of my friends, I should go and figure out what happened to everybody.' It was with that thought that Naruto threw off his covers and stood up to discover one little predicament. 'Where the hell are my clothes?' At the moment he was in nothing but his boxers.

OoOoO

After five minutes of searching the room and finally finding his scrolls piled up in the corner. They were completely covering the desk that was in the corner of the room. Naruto came out of the room he was in. Of course being in unfamiliar territory Naruto did what any descent ninja would do in his situation. He played the roll of spy.

The first person that Naruto found and spied upon was a little boy. That quickly grew boring however as all it seemed that the boy did was sulk in a corner of his bedroom, staring at a picture and crying quietly to himself.

The next person he found was a middle-aged woman. Naruto guessed her to be only in her late twenties. As he watched her go about doing a couple chores he started to admit to himself that she was very pretty in her own way. After pulling himself away from watching her he continued his self-appointed mission to discover where he was.

The next place he chose to stake out was the yard outside of the home. He started hiding in a shadow that was underneath the house's front porch. From there he observed the yard which was pretty well kept. At least when compared to some of the yards that he'd of seen back in Konoha. He couldn't help but admire the small garden that was right in front of his current hiding position. There was a small fence a short distance in front of his position that wasn't very long. He guessed they just used it as a marker for the edge of their property as opposed to actually using it to keep something in or out.

From there Naruto snuck around the house, being sure to stay underneath the windows to avoid detection, over to the back of the house. He had to admit that if anything it would be an excellent spot to practice water-walking if he ever felt like it. The whole back yard was pretty well a dock leading out into an open body of water.

After Naruto spent a few minutes admiring the view of the sun beginning to set in the distance, Naruto decided to jump up to the roof to take a look around from there. As he looked around from the top of the house he had the sudden urge to just smack himself on the forehead. 'I can't believe I didn't check the forest off to the side there.' As he poked his head over the side he heard rustling in the bushes. In reaction he pulled some of the spare shuriken and senbon that he kept in his scrolls.

It was a few seconds later that he watched Kakashi, and the other gennin walk out of the bushes and approach the house. When Kakashi was only a few steps out of the forest (Naruto now noticed that he was walking with crutches) he looked up directly to Naruto's position. 'Oh crap, I forgot to hide my chakra. Oh well.'

The copy-ninja waved up at Naruto. "Ohaiyo Naruto-san." Kakashi's greeting was returned by a shuriken that was easily caught. "I see that you seem to not only be out of bed, but ready to continue your mission, neh?" Up to here, Hinata was the only one of the gennin who'd of seen Naruto's position. To give Naruto more credit, Hinata had to use her Byakugan to find him.

"Yeah, yeah. Greetings to you too, Hatake-san." Naruto waved from his position before standing up to see the surprised looks on the faces of team seven. Naruto patted his face for a second. "What, do I have something on my face?" When Shikamaru registered the shocked look that the other team was throwing Naruto, neither one of them could hold their laughter in any longer as Hinata quietly giggled with them.

OoOoO

Now the two teams, their client and his family sat around the dining room. It was only a few minutes after Naruto met up with Kakashi and the gennin that Asuma and Tazuna had of shown up from working on the bridge, and now they were sitting around the table as Tsunami, as she was introduced to Naruto as, started serving the food. It was quiet for the first few minutes as they ate. Naruto was content with the silence. It was good food, and good company. He didn't know what else he could ask for at that moment. Besides a bowl of Ramen to go along with it all that is. That is until the only other blonde decided to interro, er, ask a question I meant.

"So what are you doing up already Naruto? I heard Kakashi-sensei say that you used enough chakra to knock youself out for at least another twenty four hours, and that when you woke up you'd probably barely be able to move." Naruto was preparing to answer her question, he did have to finish chewing and swallowing his food if he didn't want to be rude, when the question was answered for him by Hinata.

"A-Ano, pardon me Naruto-kun." Did I mention that over the previous four months Hinata started to get over her stuttering, being in Naruto's presence and all that. "Naruto-kun has always been a fast healer Ino-san. Our team has seen him run himself to exhaustion several times, and he has always been ready to continue training by the next morning. Not to mention that he never has any of his scrapes or bruises the next morning either."

This proved to be interesting topic for Ino as she kept pressing for some more info on Naruto's apparent healing abilities through out the rest of the meal. Naruto chose to zone out as he finished his meal. When he was finished he quietly excused himself from the table and put his dishes in the sink before deciding to head back to his room to get some more sleep before he'd begin training with the others again the next morning.

Considering the fact that the vast majority of the time nobody would expect Naruto to speak quietly, most people thought that he only had one volume setting, nobody except Asuma and Tsunami, she being the person that Naruto spoke to when he excused himself, realized that he'd of left the table until five minutes after he'd of left.

Up in his room, Naruto was already asleep. Of course even in his sleep Naruto dreamed of Jutsu's that he wanted to create in action. Oh, and we can't forget to put ramen in those dreams. Nosiree bob.

OoOoO

End Chapter

OoOoO

AN: Greetings and salutations. I don't have much to say myself for this chapter except that I continue to have fun with story and the great reviews all of you are sending, and to ask again for all of your help with my Asuma dilemma. If you don't remember what I'm talking about then please check the AN that I posted just after the first meeting with Zabuza. The next chapter will be the end of the Wave arc. From there they will head into one more mission before the Chuunin exams come rolling around. Boy have I been looking forward to writing that. The unveiling of Za Kaze Shokkou to the world is going to happen during the third exam.

Again I'd like to thank you all for your great reviews. Without them this story might have suffered the same fate as my Ranma stories. Hiatus. The next chapter should be out before the end of this month, if not early next month. Considering that I'll be home sitting next month while my parents go to Arizona for the month, I'll be trying to pump out chapters too, so expect more soon. Now as a little treat, I'm going to post for all of you my notes on how Naruto's **Gurido Ittou** technique notes.

Spreading out like an open fan, cutting away the storm: Grid Blade – **suehirogari, sanjo za boufuu: Gurido Ittou**

People that know the technique: Naruto, and Sandaime Hokage (Naruto explained the technique to Sarutobi, but the old man doesn't have the proper affinity to use the technique well. Then again, he has never tried it.)

This technique is a complex chakra construction that is made of several air blades just like the one that Baki uses in the anime/manga to kill Hayate Gekkou. They are put into a grid like formation a set distance, and Naruto is able to control the size of the area that the grid covers. Once he is finished building the chakra construct (this is complete in seconds, the larger the grid the more time up to five seconds for the maximum strength) through his first burst of chakra, he has to use a larger burst of chakra to throw it at a high speed. Naruto also has to know how much chakra he can put into the grid because he also has to have enough chakra to launch the grid or it'll just sit there until it disappears on its own. The amount of chakra used in the technique is dependant on the size of the grid and how many air blades he uses. The amount of chakra used to throw or launch the construct is also proportional to the size of the construct. So Naruto could create a small construct made of only four blades for a relatively low amount of chakra, and just give a burst a little larger to throw it to cut a cube shape of an object, or he can create a large grid like he does in this chapter and then use the rest of his chakra to launch it at a really high speed. This is a high A-rank jutsu for the versatility of the technique and because of the chakra control necessary to build the grid construct properly. As with nearly all of Naruto's original techniques you must also have an affinity to wind in order to pull the technique off properly. This is Naruto's strongest technique that can hit multiple targets simultaneously, or that can be used to just cover a large area. It is Naruto's second most brutal attack as well.


	6. 5: Training and a new side to some

Alright people. Once again I thank everyone for the excellent reviews. (Is it just me, or am I starting to sound like a parrot with all these thank you's) However, I must say that just recently I got a particular review that really sparked my interest. It was my first review that could be considered a flame. Later though, the reviewer and I started along a path that I like to refer to as 'The Rant Wars'. Pretty well, how it started was with the one review that was sent to me by the reviewer: Firecanburn.

I know that normally I'm not supposed to do things like this (Answering reviews in a story), but really I'm not. I guess you can refer to this as a part of 'The Rant Wars'. What I'd like to do here is show you guys the review that started it all, along with my reply (yes, I copied and pasted it into a word document to save). I hope you guys don't mind this. It can be skipped after all. Here is the review as I received it in my e-mail.

If you'd like to skip straight to the story, just press 'ctrl + F' and type in 'OoOoO' without the brackets. That will skip past this straight to the story.

The following review has been submitted to: Za Kaze Shokkou The Wind Weaver Chapter: 5

From: Firecanburn (deleted to match guidelines set by ffdotnet)  
Reply URL: (deleted to match guidelines set by ffdotnet)

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One problem that made me stop at the second chapter. You make Naruto talk like he is 20ish. He is a 12 year old i-d-i-o-t. Even if he can read and maybe make a simple jutsu or two. You make him learn kaze bunshin or kage bunshin. Not some strange seal thing that makes him look smarter than most of konoha. Number 2. You make him cheerful, happy-go-lucky teen. Then you make him out of the world smart and strong? PICK one. He can be either smart and darker, or happy,loud, and stupid. Yes, it is possible for him to be strong in both. For the happy side he has kage bunshin and uses kyuubi a ton. While in the dark side, he is strong by himself. That's what makes Naruto...attractive for lack of better word. You can twist and bend his character anyway you want. For example, in affinities, Sasuke will always have fire, he isn't Sasuke without fire. While at the same time Naruto can be ANY element you chose. It's that malleability that makes it fun. Your making him GOD. Make him earthlier, more natural.Keep working on it.  
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Do not reply to this email. If the review is signed, use reply link provided above. Messaging Service

At first glance when I read this I admit that I was pissed. To me it seemed that he was just insulting my story and putting down my views on what Naruto could've been like. Now, I will post my response. Please keep in mind that I just wrote the response to rebuke/argue against his points. There was no resemblance to order in mind.

I am trying to make a Naruto that is more intellegent that is the focus. The image that I'm aiming for with his personality is that he is a happier person, but not idiotically happy like in canon.

And no offense to people, but while reading about the idiotic Naruto is entertaining, I cannot entirely picture him being that way realistically. At least not with the way that he grew up.

Also in this he is a little more of a smart ass when towards people that he doesn't know very well yet like Kakashi.

Another thing that I found wrong with canon Naruto's personality is that he is too trusting of people right away. Kabuto for example before the first test in the Chuunin exams.

What I'm going for Naruto is not a personality that says 'Hey, my childhood was hell because of you', or the 'Hey, I'm a happy idiot who doesn't care if I've been beaten up in the past' Naruto. What I guess I'd have to say to describe his personality is. 'I am an intelligent person. I act happy and trusting towards people, but in reality I am a little withdrawn due to my past. I am trying to get past that though to get to know more people.' As many people have done Naruto wears a personality mask.

And the fact that he reverse-engineered that tattoo he used in the gennin exam. As I said, anyone could've done it. Naruto just came up with the idea while reading a history book about the first ninja and how they fought. Any of the semi-intellegent characters could've done the same thing, it is just that it was a time consuming process that Naruto stuck to diligently. As far as we know someone else could've started the same project but gave up on it. That wasn't done to make others look like idiots. That is one thing I'm trying not to do.

As for your comment about Naruto being too powerful. No, he isn't. In my opinion if Naruto was too powerful then he'd also be a god at taijutsu and Genjutsu. Not to mention the fact that after expending so much chakra performing his 'Grid Blade' technique he would of had plenty of chakra to spare. After all that technique is much more of a complex construction or shape. Multiple Air blades just set up in a formation. In the Anime/Manga when Baki kills Hayate, he uses the Air Blade technique in such a way that it doesn't seem that difficult (and without seals to boot), and he's only slightly winded because of the hit that he took in order to set up the kill. Naruto's technique is just a lot more complex in control. Also, I believe that there would be side-effects to having Kyuubi inside of him. Surely Naruto's chakra would become more potent due to being used with the seal to hold the demon back. I guess that's all I'm going to say on that.

Also, this is an AU story. The fact that Naruto learned how to read early is just the catalyst that started all of the other changes to Naruto's personality. You don't have to say it like it's the end of the world or something to that degree because I'm making Naruto out to be different then other writers.

Ah shoot, sorry if it sounded like I was ranting to you. When I first read what you wrote it sounded like a flame, but now that I've reread it I realized that it isn't really. Sorry about that. Anyways, I do thank you for what you said, but more then likely it won't change too much for what I'm doing with Naruto. I really am trying to make him a little more realistic. Also, I hope you don't mind it but I think I'm going to save this reply and throw it in with the AN for the beginning of the next chapter. I thank you for reading.

This is just showing how things started. Pretty well though, what I guess I want to say by showing you this is that I'm not afraid to take your criticism. I do like seeing positive reviews, but no offense to those who fit into this category I'm getting kind of bored seeing reviews where people just say 'Please update.' Or 'Great chapter' all of the time. I prefer seeing analytical reviews like this one. As you can see from my response, I'm not afraid to argue points either, and I will accept a defeat if I see good points made. I want to hear this stuff. I feel that it will make my writing better, and by proxy make the story more enjoyable.

Anyways, now that I've wasted two pages of your time I will now get onto the story. Oh, and if you haven't guessed already. As an apology for making you all go through this, I'm making this chapter longer than usual. Hopefully around fifteen-twenty pages as opposed to eight-ten and this will be the last chapter before my first custom arc (or non-canon mission).

'Ends rant mode'

OoOoO

Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

OoOoO

'Drip' 'Drip' 'Drip'

It was that annoying dripping noise again. Naruto groaned to himself as he sat up. He couldn't figure out for the life of him why he still found that noise annoying after hearing it every time he awoke for as long as he could remember.

As he put it out of his mind again Naruto grabbed one of his scrolls. A small smirk formed on his face as he though about what everyone was going to think upon seeing the new look he was about to show off.

OoOoO

Many people thought that Uchiha Sasuke was a naturally broody person. Anyone would agree with that assumption, but they truly knew nothing. Sure, he dwelled a lot on his brother, the murder of his clan (especially his parents' death), and how he was going to become strong enough to kill his brother. What nobody knew about him though was that he wouldn't be nearly as broody if it wasn't for the fact that he was a shinobi.

Now you may ask yourself: What does that have to do with it? Well, the answer to that was hidden within one little known fact about him. For you see, Uchiha Sasuke is not a morning person. He definitely enjoyed most things that come with being a ninja. The one major thing that he hated was the fact that every day whether for training, missions, or many other miscellaneous things that shinobi were involved in, he had to get up at ungodly hours.

Civilians thought that seven or eight in the morning was early. They knew nothing of the hell of early mornings for a ninja. Being up at four or five in the morning, now that was hell to the young Uchiha. If Sasuke hadn't of picked up on the fact that his sensei was chronically tardy then he'd certainly resemble more of a soldier in the armies of the living dead, than a proud ninja.

So that takes us to our scene right now, where five young zombie soldiers drinking coffee and the 'too chirpy for this time of day' Kakashi were sitting at the table in the dining room at five in the morning waiting for the male blonde who was part of their mission to join them.

After five minutes all of the gennin suddenly switched from 'Zombie Soldier' mode back to Ninja. Whether that was from the coffee finally kicking in on their young bodies or from the person that just came down the stairs has yet to be figured out.

Ino blinked, repeatedly at that. Sasuke chose to try to out blink her (well not really). Chouji looked once before ripping open his first bag of chips for the day looking like he was unwrapping a Christmas gift. Hinata blushed before fainting. And Hinata's faint spell caused Shikamaru to look down at her while mumbling about troublesome people and their troublesome ways. Kakashi just nodded in agreement with the Nara before complimenting the blonde.

"Now you look more like a real ninja Naruto."

"Thanks Hatake-san."

With their reactions one would think that Naruto's new outfit was something either extravagant or just plain ridiculous. That is until they remembered that Naruto was somewhat famous for being one of the most unpredictable ninja in Konoha, second only to Anko, who proudly holds that title for now, though the gennin didn't know about her yet.

What he was wearing is what civilians would consider an Assassin Squad ninja to look like. He wore black ninja sandals, black pants designed for maneuverability and versatility with a kunai pouch on each leg, a black t-shirt thought that was hidden by a sweatshirt that he wore overtop of it that had many pockets for scrolls and throwing weapons, and last but not least he wore what looked like a black turban that completely covered his blonde hair. The only distinguishable features on the boy were his whisker birthmarks and his bright blue eyes that were currently filled with mirth at the other's expense.

"So what's on the schedule today?" Naruto asked.

"Training. I'm not absolutely certain, but I believe that Zabuza managed to survive the fight he had with Asuma-san and I."

"Whaaat? But we all saw that hunter-nin kill him with those senbon needles." Ino answered.

"The weapon is the exact reason why I think that Zabuza is alive. That along with the fact that he took Zabuza's body away."

"Hunter-nin are supposed to destroy the body right away." Naruto cut in. "There is also the fact that someone skilled enough with senbon can actually put a target into a death-like state, where by all detectable methods the person appears to be dead until after the needles are removed. Of course if they are left like that for too long it can really kill them."

"That is correct Naruto. Therefore I believe that it would be best for us to train during the time that it'll take Zabuza to recover. I believe that will be ten days. Next time he comes after Tazuna he will more than likely have reinforcements with him." Kakashi let that sink in for a few seconds before clapping his hands once to regain everyone's attention. "Alright then, let's head outside to start your training."

OoOoO

Ten minutes later the gennin of the two teams were outside a short distance into the forest. A fuming Sasuke had of just landed from making a fifteen foot run up the tree before he was repelled from using too much chakra, Chouji was right next to him after making it sixteen feet up on his third try, Ino and Shikamaru were sitting down on branches half way up their trees, while Hinata was standing on top of her tree with Naruto, who was on the same tree, laying on the underside of the highest branch after a casual walk up the tree.

"So Hatake-san, now that Hinata and I have proven that we've mastered this exercise can we go off for our own training now?" Naruto broke the silence other then Chouji and Sasuke's grunts of effort trying to get the exercise down.

Kakashi raised his eyes from the book and looked at the two. "What are you two planning to do?" He asked.

"I'm going to continue teaching Hinata how to walk on water, while I have my own chakra control exercise that I want to practice for the next few hours before I do a little bit more reading." Kakashi raised his visible eyebrow when he heard the blonde boy's answer.

"Alright, you two can go. I expect the two of you back here in three hours though. I'd like to see some spars then." Naruto raised an eyebrow in reaction to Kakashi's statement.

"Hai Kakashi-sensei." Hinata answered. Then Naruto did a short flip landing on the branch underneath him and he joined Hinata who was already jumping through the trees towards the lake behind Tazuna's place.

OoOoO

About ten minutes later Naruto stood out on a lake with Hinata a few feet in front of him. Naruto stood looking totally relaxed with his hands in his jacket pockets and leaning back on one leg casually. Hinata stood in a basic stance of her family style. They stared at each other watching for who would make the first move. They stayed like that for another few minutes before Hinata finally acted with a charge.

Naruto continued to stand there casually until the last second when he ducked under Hinata's left handed palm strike and retaliated with a leg sweep which was flipped over by Hinata. As soon as Hinata landed she spun around, which Naruto was doing as well, and performed a right handed palm strike which Naruto dodged to the side of before throwing a right hook back which was parried by Hinata's left hand. After that short exchange was finished they both backed off, Hinata by doing a back flip, and Naruto by gliding backwards on the water. When they both stopped a total of fifteen feet away from each other they both took a few seconds before Naruto continued the fight. Naruto did so by quickly pulling out a kunai which was launched at Hinata and following behind it. Hinata caught the kunai with her right hand as she spun and performed a sideways slash with the kunai which would of cut Naruto across the gut if it had of connected, but Naruto wasn't following that path anymore.

As Hinata caught the kunai and spun Naruto had of changed directions and followed the spin halfway through to behind where she was facing when she stopped. Naruto followed this up by finishing his charge while Hinata was caught off guard and striking her right shoulder with a straight kick using his left leg. This forced Hinata into an opposing second spin that she wasn't prepared for and she wound up falling into the water. As Hinata resurfaced Naruto decided to give his thoughts on their short spar.

"That was very good Hinata-chan. You're getting faster on the water." Naruto offered his hand to pull her up and out of the water as he continued. "It's almost getting to the point now for you where you don't need to think about it. Then it will probably go back to having you hand me my ass all the time. I was also very impressed with that flip you performed over my sweep. For a second I thought you were going to forget to temporarily change the chakra flow to make up for the landing from the jump." Hinata blushed at the praise.

"Arigatou Naruto-kun." Naruto grinned at her in reply while pulling her up.

"Shall we go for another round?" When Hinata nodded Naruto put his hands back in his pockets and glided back on the water until he was fifteen feet away from her again.

OoOoO

A couple hours later Hinata and Naruto were enjoying a quiet walk back to the clearing where everyone else was training. As they went Naruto was analyzing what he'd of seen of the jyuuken fighting style so far.

'Alright, I know that Hinata was banned from explaining to us exactly how her family taijutsu style works but lets see what I can figure out from what I've seen so far. I guess the most obvious thing about the jyuuken is that it isn't a style that relies on brute force.' He glanced out of the corner of his eyes for a second. 'That is kind of obvious if someone like Hinata can still cause major damage with the style. No offense meant to her, but she isn't the most physically strong of shinobi. It seems to cause damage to the inside of the opponent's bodies, usually cutting off the flow of chakra through a point in the body. I'm guessing that it is done by shooting chakra out their hands into the opponent's body. From what Hinata has told us about the Byakugan, I'm guessing that they use their doujutsu to aim for specific parts of the chakra circulatory system. The forms and stances that are used in the style seem to be focused on speed. Maybe I could use them or variations of them to create my own style replacing the act of damaging the inner body through the act of shooting chakra through my hands, but instead use my wind manipulation abilities to cause the damage through blunt force blasts of wind. Yeah, then I can also practice creating gusts of wind to help me maneuver my opponents into better positions or to assist in parrying my opponents attacks. I already do something similar with that jutsu of mine. Yeah, maybe I could get Hinata to help me a bit in the development of the fighting style. I will have to come up with a name for it though.'

As Naruto was deep in thought he didn't notice Hinata's small smile that she got when she saw Naruto face scrunched up in thought. She'd of always found it cute.

OoOoO

"Ah, Hinata, Naruto. Finally back I see." Kakashi greeted the two as they walked back into the clearing.

"Ano, were we late Kakashi-sensei?" Hinata asked.

"No not at all. In fact, you two are just in time. Why don't you two come over here and sit with the others. Then I'll explain the rules of today's sparring session." When Hinata and Naruto sat down Kakashi continued. "Alright then, we are all going to do a taijutsu only spar. So that means that I do not want to see any ninjutsu or genjutsu being used at all, even if you can do them without seals." Kakashi plainly looked at Naruto here who nodded his head to show that he understood. Then Naruto chose to ask a question.

"Can we use chakra control exercises like the tree climbing exercise?"

"Only if you know that your opponent can do the same exercise as well."

Naruto snapped his fingers looking disappointed. "Dang, then I'm probably only on par with Sasuke for speed then." Kakashi raised his eyebrow when he heard Naruto say that.

"And also, there will be no weapons used during these spars. Those are your rules for today. I would like to see you guys paired off as follows. First Ino, I would like you to spar with Hinata. Then Chouji, I'd like you to spar with Shikamaru, and finally Sasuke and Naruto, I would like to see you two go at it." Here Kakashi got a gleam in his eye. 'Whichever one of those two loses will probably be knocked down a peg or two. I think they both need it.' The gleam in the eye and the thought that accompanied it only lasted for a split second and was gone by the time anyone could notice it. "Alright then, let's move aside so that we can get this show on the road people."

After Kakashi said that the gennin other than Hinata and Ino stood up and walked off to the side to clear some space for the combatants. Hinata stood from her spot on the ground and closed her eyes, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself, a handy trick she learned from Asuma to calm her nerves down to better prepare her for a fight and to help push any self doubts away. She then settled into the same basic jyuuken stance that she did in her earlier spars with Naruto.

Ino stood up and did a couple quick stretches to loosen up her upper body. She was prepared to try and show off to Sasuke and show him how strong she is. She settled herself into a basic academy taijutsu stance.

Kakashi looked back and forth between them for a few seconds before speaking. "Alright then, if you are both ready" he got nods from both girls "then begin."

Even before their team was made official, Asuma had of started on teaching his soon-to-be students about the one thing that he believed was important to nearly all aspects of being a shinobi, patience. There was very little that Asuma had to drill into his team's heads on the subject since all three of his students already had patience to some degree. It quickly became obvious to Hinata and her team mates that Kakashi paid very little if any time teaching his students to be patient. They came to this conclusion from Ino's immediate actions after the start of the fight. She charged. Not a calculated charge like Naruto tended to do where he is usually testing his opponent's reaction or trying to create an opening. No, she just charged in like a bull with tunnel vision and performed a basic jump kick. Hinata's reaction was similar to how she reacts to a sweep kick, yet different at the same time. She jumped. But when she was in a position to she flipped into an upside down position in midair, then proceed to grab Ino's extended leg as she continued the flip and using the force of her spin carried Ino with her before slamming the poor blonde back first into the ground just as the purple haired girl landed. Ino was unable to get back up; she was so winded from the force of the slam. Not to mention the dizziness from when her head hit the ground as well.

Kakashi and the other members of team seven blinked a few times as Kakashi spoke up. "I guess that's that. That was a nice reaction there Hinata." Then he whispered to himself. "Maybe I should work with Ino a little more on strategy and taijutsu."

Naruto chuckled to himself when he saw team seven's reaction, while Shikamaru just shook his head. "Well Shika, you going to go now?" When he heard the question Shikamaru gave a barely noticeable smirk.

"As troublesome as it is to spar with one of my best friends, never mind just sparring at all, I'm actually looking forward to seeing if Chouji has improved any since we all graduated from the academy." Chouji tilted his head at this and stuffed one last handful of chips into his mouth before patting his hands on the sides of his pants to get rid of the grease from the chips before standing up.

"Sure Shikamaru. I guess I'll take this seriously then." Chouji answered Shikimaru's unspoken challenge.

"My clan may not be big on taijutsu like yours is Chouji, but I'll be putting up the best fight I can anyways." He glanced from Chouji over to Naruto. "So troublesome, I still can't believe that I picked up your enthusiasm for a good challenge." With that said Chouji and Shikamaru headed down to the center of the field where Kakashi had of just finished moving Ino out of the way.

While they were walking up Kakashi approached Naruto. "So what do you think are the odds of Shikamaru winning Naruto?" When Kakashi asked this Sasuke couldn't help but be interested in what Naruto would say.

"Hmm, I can't say" Naruto responded. "Like Shikamaru himself said his clan isn't the best at taijutsu, but unless Chouji has increased either his speed or stamina by a lot then Shikamaru might win. It's tough to say. Speed is one of the few things our team constantly trains together in."

Hinata chose to join the conversation too. "Pardon me, but I agree with Naruto's assessment, though I can't say since I don't know much about Chouji at all." By the time Naruto and Hinata finished talking Chouji and Shikamaru were down on the field and waiting for the signal to start the spar.

Chouji stood there in one of his family's taijutsu stances. He stood so that his weight was on his right leg which was slightly bent at the knee and the toes were pointing to his right, his left foot was half a foot in front of his right and was pointing straight ahead. His right arm was bent at a ninety degree angle pointing in the same direction as his right foot, and his left arm was pointing dead ahead with his elbow bent at a one hundred and thirty five degree angle so that his fist was pointing slightly towards the sky. Unlike many times that his team mates had seen, he looked ready to fight in a serious matter.

Shikamaru stood opposite of him in what was quickly becoming known to his team as the Naruto pose. The stance where he just stands there casually with his hands in his pocket and putting all of his weight on his right leg which is slightly bent at the knee.

Kakashi raised his eyes at Shikamaru's stance but continued anyways once he realized that Shikamaru was ready for the spar. "Okay then, go!"

Unlike Ino, Chouji showed some patience. He stood there in his stance analyzing Shikamaru, as Shikamaru was doing with him. After about fifteen second both fighters charged. Upon reaching each other Chouji threw a right jab at Shikamaru's head which missed when Shikamaru dove to Chouji's left doing a dive-roll. As soon as his feet touched the ground at the end of his roll Shikamaru pushed off and sent himself back at Chouji with an aerial sidekick that Chouji blocked with his left arm. Before Chouji could grab onto him Shikamaru jumped off of the arm sending both Chouji and himself away from each other a few feet Chouji sliding backwards while Shikamaru flew through the air backwards. As soon as he stopped his backwards movement Chouji reversed his momentum and dashed at Shikamaru who was just landing from his jump. Shikamaru only had enough time to duck under the powerful haymaker that nearly nailed him in the chest. Shikamaru answered the attack by twirling clockwise around and throwing a leg sweep which was jumped over by Chouji. However, when Chouji jumped he also threw his knee forward into Shikamaru's forehead knocking him back a good meter.

After rolling backwards to get on his feet Shikamaru stood to rub his sore forehead. "That's it, I forfeit." Before Kakashi could say anything Shikamaru decided to state his reason. "I'm barely able to keep myself from falling back on my ass right now. I'm dazed enough from that hit that if we continued it would only be another minute at most before Chouji would be finished beating me into the ground." When he finished talking Shikamaru walked back over to the tree next to Naruto a little woozy on his feet. Upon reaching him Shikamaru sat on the ground and leaned against the tree. "I'll be fine in a few minutes."

"That was a pretty good spar, both of you. I'm quite surprised that you did so well Shikamaru." Kakashi stopped talking as he heard Shikamaru quietly say 'Thanks, I guess'. "That was a pretty good show of acrobatics. It was also good how you never gave Chouji a chance to grab onto you when he blocked your jump kick. Again, that was very good, both of you." As he finished talking he turned to look at Naruto and Sasuke who were leaning against trees looking like they had no cares in the world. "Now you two, I'm actually expecting to see the best performance yet out of the two of you."

When he heard this Naruto scoffed at Kakashi. "Then I guess you'll be disappointed Hatake-san. I've never been much for taijutsu. Since I believe Sasuke and myself to be about the same speed I would have to say that Sasuke clearly has the advantage. He actually knows a decent style, while all I've got under my belt are some parts of the basic academy style mixed in with a little bit of a brawler's fighting style." Never the less, Naruto still stood up move towards the center of the field where Sasuke was already waiting for him.

"Dobe, I hope you're ready to acknowledge that I'm the better ninja." Naruto sweat dropped at Sasuke's words.

"Well I hope that you realize that if you win this it would just show that you're better at taijutsu than I am. Nothing more, nothing less." He said this while waving his hands at Sasuke. Then he went into his fighting stance, the same one that Shikamaru had of just used when he started fighting Chouji.

"Pfft, whatever dobe. I'm still the better ninja anyways. I'll just have to beat some sense into you." That just got another snort from Naruto.

"Whatever baka, let's just get this over with. I've still got more of my own training to do when we're finished here." Sasuke didn't say anything back; he just entered his taijutsu stance which was similar to Chouji's except that he ducked down lower and instead of having his left fist pointing slightly skywards he had it facing straight towards Naruto.

"Alright, now that the banter is out of the way, begin." This fight Kakashi decided he would watch from the top of a tree branch instead of from ground level.

By the time Kakashi had of finished talking Naruto was already analyzing Sasuke's stance, and there was just one thing that the stance screamed at Naruto. And that was, DEFENSE! So Naruto started things off immediately. He gave a quick dash towards Sasuke with his hands still in his pockets the whole way. Upon reaching the Uchiha, he gave a small hop and threw his right knee at Sasuke's face which was easily blocked by a forearm even though the blow did send Sasuke sliding backwards a foot. While he was still in midair from the knee Naruto gave a quick counter-clockwise spin that morphed into a reverse side kick with his left foot that barely missed Sasuke's head. After the short exchange Sasuke quickly took his chance to backpedal a few feet and reassess his opponent. The one thing that went through his head was 'Damn, that first kick fucking hurt'.

"I thought you said that you don't know much taijutsu dobe." Naruto smirked hearing Sasuke say this.

"You're right. I don't know much about taijutsu. What I never mentioned though was that I am quite strong and physically fit especially in my lower body. After all, one doesn't end up running from chuunin and jounin a lot without becoming fit." As he spoke Naruto had of pulled his hands out of his pockets and was slowly closing his fists one finger at a time cracking each knuckle. "Now are we going to continue this fight, or was that your resignation teme?"

Sasuke smirked in return. "You're on."

When he finished talking Sasuke quickly dashed towards Naruto with a right jab towards Naruto's head. It was dodged when Naruto tilted his head to his right and retaliated with an uppercut towards Sasuke's diaphragm. Sasuke took a step back to dodge and threw a roundhouse kick with his left leg towards Naruto's head which was blocked by Naruto's right forearm. Naruto took the opportunity to grab onto Sasuke's leg and spun Sasuke around twice before throwing him towards a tree. Sasuke did a back flip in mid air and landed against the tree. He then proceeded to use the tree as a springboard to launch himself back towards Naruto who took the opportunity to throw a clothesline towards Sasuke. Sasuke countered though by flipping over Naruto's arm and throwing a kick into Naruto's back dealing the first solid hit of the fight. Naruto stumbled two steps before turning back to Sasuke and watching him land. Both fighters stared at each other for a few seconds before simultaneously jumping towards each other. Both fighters had their right arms cocked back ready to punch each other square in the face. When they did throw their punches Sasuke dealt the more solid hit since had longer arms than Naruto. What Sasuke didn't see coming was that Naruto took the force of the punch that received and turned it into momentum into the spin kick that landed in Sasuke's gut before both of them hit the ground again, with Sasuke on his back and Naruto on his feet. They both stared at each other again for a few seconds before Sasuke started to get back to his feet.

"That was very good, both of you." Kakashi had of chosen this time to stop the fight. "I know that neither one of you is finished yet, but I've seen what I've wanted to. Naruto, if you could tell us what your view is as to why you were able to keep up with Sasuke in your fight if, as you said yourself, you're not as skilled in taijutsu as he is."

"It's simple really. Unlike Sasuke I wasn't just reacting to my opponent's moves. Fact of the matter is that I was always trying to think a step ahead in the fight. Of course there were flaws in my foresight, like when Sasuke flipped over my follow up move to throwing Sasuke. After all, I figured that he'd use the tree to throw himself back into the fight therefore lining him up for a clothesline. In our final exchange I knew that he had longer arms than I do so I went with the flow of his hit and used the momentum created by his punch to add power to my real attack. Even if the added power wasn't that much, the attack still served its purpose." Naruto shrugged at the end before looking over at Sasuke expecting him to try and argue against what Naruto said. Naruto was surprised to see that Sasuke was actually thinking about what Naruto said. Naruto smirked seeing this. "So you may become a worthy rival to me yet, Uchiha." That was said in a sarcastic tone as Naruto wore a smile on his face that contradicted the tone of voice he'd of used.

When Sasuke heard Naruto's statement he was about to blow up at Naruto but he stopped himself when he saw Naruto's smile. He then thought for another second and smirked at Naruto. "As great as I am dobe, one should pay attention when the village idiot actually says something smart." Surprised at Sasuke's reaction to his jibe, it took Naruto a second to recover, and when he did he stuck his tongue out at Sasuke earning a chuckle from Kakashi and a giggle from Hinata.

"Alright, now how about we all head back to Tazuna's house to rest up for a bit and maybe have some lunch, then we'll decide what to do from there."

OoOoO

They arrived back at the house at the same time that Asuma and Tazuna came back from the bridge deciding that they'd eat lunch at the house. The two groups greeted each other as they headed into the house.

"Good afternoon. Welcome back everyone." Tsuname greeted them just inside the door. "My you youngsters are covered in sweat. How about you wash up before lunch, it'll be ready in about ten minutes. It's just some fish soup. I hope you all don't mind."

"Fish soup is just fine ma'am. We are sorry to impose on you like this." Asuma responded for the teams. "For some of the other meals we'll pit in our own fair share. Does anybody have any ideas?" Hinata was the one who spoke up.

"Ano, earlier I saw some deer close by. We can probably hunt one and cut it up. That would probably last us a few days at the least." Asuma smiled down at her hearing Hinata's suggestion.

"That sounds good. Either Kakashi or I will go out and get us a deer sometime today. Now you all go along and get washed up.

"Hey, I don't need to be babied" was Naruto's indignant reply followed by a fist in the air. "I've been living on my own for over five years now." Sasuke nodded in agreement to Naruto's statement.

"Yeah, yeah. Now you two join the others. When you're with the team us sensei will do what we want." Asuma replied with a smirk before pushing Naruto after the others. Sasuke quietly followed after them.

Tsuname wound up laughing aloud along with Ino when she heard Shikamaru berate Naruto for being so troublesome over something so simple.

OoOoO

After lunch was over the two teams found themselves back outside. They were with Asuma this time instead of Kakashi. The gennins were whispering amongst themselves quietly until Asuma clapped his hands once to gain everyone's attention.

"Alright everyone, I was told by Kakashi that you guys were working on chakra control for the first few hours this morning followed by some sparring." He stopped to watch each gennin nod. "That's good. Kakashi told me that he was impressed by everyone's performance even though he never did watch the two of you' he pointed at Hinata and Naruto here 'train since you got his permission to train with water walking." He stopped to think for a few seconds. "Alright then, since it probably won't do any of you any good to be sideways or upside down so soon after eating lunch, we will be doing some stretches followed by independent practice for the rest of the day along with instruction on a new type of control that most of you are unfamiliar with. I will go around to each of you as you practice so you can get some help if need be.

"Before we start though, I'd like each one of you, except for you Naruto, to take one of these slips of paper. These papers are used to tell if your chakra has a natural alignment with any of the elements. Keep in mind though that not everyone has a connection to an element. So don't be surprised if nothing happens. Now what you need to do is hold the paper in your dominant hand, the one that you write with, and push a little bit of chakra into the paper. Depending on what element you are, if you have one, the paper will react differently." As he was explaining this he handed the papers out to each of the gennin, except Naruto. "Now I'd like each one of you to push a bit of chakra into the piece of paper when I tell you to. I'll tell you what your paper did."

"Alright then let's start with Team seven. You first Ino." Ino pushed a bit of chakra into the paper causing it to crumple a bit. "Ah yes, that's the lightning element. What this means for you is that say for example you were given a chance to learn an A-rank jutsu of the earth type and the lightning type, then you would have an easier time learning and using the lightning jutsu. Another thing though is that you may learn to manipulate the element in its purest form. Though that is extremely hard to do direct elemental manipulation often takes over a decade for most ninja to learn. Unfortunately I don't know any lightning jutsu so you'll have to ask Kakashi about that."

"Wow, that's awesome. I can't wait to get started." Ino was starting to hop up and down in place. Asuma chuckled to himself before moving onto the next person.

"Okay Chouji, you next." When Chouji pushed some chakra into his piece of paper he watched as his piece of paper turned blocky and fell apart in his hands. "Okay then, that's the earth element. If I were to use an example to explain what this means it would be the same as Ino's example. Of course you'd choose earth element over lightning. However, if you choose to try to learn the pure element manipulation you'd have an easier time than Ino would. That's only because earth, dirt, and rock are much easier to come by then a bolt of lightning or a source of electricity is." Upon receiving a nod of understanding Asuma moved on.

"And lastly for this team, you Sasuke." When Sasuke pushed his chakra he was only mildly surprised when the paper burst into flames and just as quickly turned to ash. "Well that was predictable. It's not commonly known, but it is believed that your bloodline has its own connection to the fire element so any Uchiha who is capable of awakening their bloodline will always be aligned to the fire element."

"And now for my team. We already know Naruto's element so we're going to skip him."

"Um, pardon me Asuma-sensei, but can we know what Naruto's element is?" Ino interrupted.

"Is it alright with you Naruto?" Asuma asked first.

"They'll probably know before the end of this mission anyways." Naruto replied as he nodded his assent.

"Hey, why didn't you give us the option of doing it without your team knowing?" Sasuke didn't show it but he thought Ino had of asked a very good question.

"Ah, well I didn't think that it mattered to you all. However I do know that at times Naruto can be quite secretive about himself and his past." Asuma answered before things could get heated between Ino and an indifferent Naruto. Ino and Sasuke were the only gennin who noticed the cold look that crossed Naruto's face as soon as Asuma mentioned Naruto's past. It was gone within the next few seconds though, replaced by what the two were now able to recognize as a fake smile. Ino looked over at Sasuke who gave a hand signal telling her to leave it alone.

"Naruto is a wind element user. Naruto's connection is really strong with his element too. He's actually the only person in any known records that has mastered manipulating his elemental before he turned ten." That got surprised looks from team seven, even the normally near-unflappable Uchiha, and a genuine smile from Naruto. Ino couldn't help but feel a little better seeing that Naruto wasn't one of those people incapable of real happiness.

"Um, wow" was all Ino never mind the other members of her team could think to say. After a few seconds of the team staring at Naruto with an amused Asuma behind them Naruto finally gave in to their silent inquiry.

"Okay fine, I'll give an example. Since the technique is normally only known in wind country I had to find out how it works and recreate it myself. Here is a wind blade." Naruto took the moment to make a blade in his hand which was nearly invisible. "This blade not being made of any solid matter is sharper then any sword or blade that I've ever heard about. Being as such" here Naruto quickly threw the blade and cut several branches off of some trees before the blade went past the tree tops and into the sky " it can cut through any solid matter, whether it be steel, wood, or flesh, and can only be blocked by another similar blade. I say similar because I've heard of a technique that makes a sword out of pure chakra, though I don't know that technique. I've theorized that only two other elements can make a similar blade. They are lightning and fire. I say that because earth and water are a solid and liquid respectively."

"Was this what you used to kill that ninja back in the forest?" Sasuke's team was surprised to hear him ask that question.

"What I used was what could be called an upgrade of the wind blade. Well not really but I just used as many wind blades as I could simultaneously, putting them in a formation where the only way to get out of the attack was to get out of the area it was heading towards." Sasuke nodded his head in understanding. He was starting to plan on ways to create his own version of the technique with his fire element. Maybe he'd get Kakashi's help with it.

Asuma clapped his hands to get everyone's attention. "Can we move along now?" The gennin before him had the sense to look ashamed of wasting so much time.

"Thank you. Now Hinata, how about you go first. When Hinata pushed her chakra into the paper it darkened in color and became damp. Asuma whistled. "Sheesh, now that's all five elements covered between the six of you. I don't know too many water jutsu so you may have to ask someone else later, maybe Kakashi, anyways I'd guess that Hinata hasn't been having that much trouble learning the water walking exercise?" At Hinata and Naruto's nods he continued. "Your elemental affinity has something to do with that. It'll make anything you do involving water easier than it would be for say Ino."

"And last but not least, Shikamaru." Asuma turned to Shikamaru who pushed his chakra into the paper to get a surprising result. His paper split in half. "Well I'll be." Asuma could only blink almost stupidly at the piece of paper that was split in half. He was quickly joined by Naruto.

"What is it?" Again Ino had to be her curious self.

"It seems that if I include myself there are three people of the wind element on my team. Now that is incredibly rare for the leaf. Before the gennin exams this year, if I exclude Naruto, I was the only known wind user in Konoha who is under the age of sixty. The only other one being a Hyuuga clan elder, you'll have to pardon me since I never learned his name." Hinata was surprised to hear this. "Wind alignments are pretty popular in Suna and a little less so in Kumo but not in Konoha. Not by a long shot."

"You mean to say that team ten is the only active team right now that has any members that are aligned to the wind element?" Chouji asked.

"That is correct." Asuma answered. After thinking for a few more seconds while looking at Shikamaru, Asuma shook his head and continued. "Now that we know which elements you guys are we can start the training that I wanted to give you. Let's just say that you are all going to start on the same path that Naruto did when he was seven years old." Asuma smiled proudly down at the gennin who looked back at him surprised. "Team seven, your sensei asked me to start teaching you elemental manipulation since I know more about it then he does. For the next week we will be working on elemental manipulation." Asuma turned to Naruto. "Do you mind assisting me in this task Naruto?" When Naruto shook his head in the affirmative Asuma continued.

"Thank you. Naruto, I'm going to start working with Chouji, Hinata, and Shikamaru. I know that you aren't too experienced with the first two's elements and I want to teach Shikamaru myself, but if you could work with Ino and Sasuke it would be greatly appreciated." Naruto nodded and then motioned for Ino and Sasuke to follow as Naruto walked a little further into the forest towards the next clearing which had a small creek running through it.

OoOoO

"This will be perfect." Naruto was the one to break the silence between the three of them that lasted the ten minute walk to the clearing. "In case you're wondering, I do know that the creek and moisture in the air here will make it a little harder for Sasuke to do his exercises, but it readily gives me a good enough water source to work with in case one of the two of you winds up accidentally starting a forest fire."

"How would that work with me Naruto-sensei?" Naruto was quite surprised by the suffix that Ino attached to his name. Ino noticed his discomfort and smirked at him scaring him even more. Naruto quickly shook his head to clear out the surprise and nervousness generated by Ino's actions.

"Think about it Ino. I know that you won't be making bolts of lightning today, but a strong enough surge of electricity is quite capable of heating the stuff up that it travels through to the point that it catches fire. I'm not sure of the exact scientific reasoning as to why those things happen; but please trust me when I say that it does." Ino and Sasuke nodded their heads in understanding. "Alright now, moving onto getting you two started on your training. I need you Sasuke to make a small campfire. I'm asking you to do this because it's easier to manipulate an element that is already there then to have to use your chakra to create the element and then manipulate it."

"Alright, I'll be back in a few minutes." With that said, Sasuke ran off into the forest to collect the wood for his fire.

"Ok then Ino, just after we got off the boat I was reading about some stuff that should actually be a great place for you to start out with on your training. As you know lightning, or electricity, is a source that we cannot just make so easily as what Sasuke is doing. Instead I'm actually going to talk to you about the human body and how you can use your own body as a source of electricity."

"Woah, woah, woah. Since when does the human body have electricity in it?"

"Since forever Ino. Every movement, every sensation, that the human body experiences will create a tiny surge of electricity. That small bit of electricity will run to and from the brain. It is just how the brain communicates with the rest of the body in order to run things. This also means that everyone's chakra has a little bit of electricity in it." When he finished describing this Naruto waited a little bit for Ino to get what he was saying.

Ino had her face scrunched up in thought. She was thinking about what Naruto said and what this would lead to her having to do. She thought about it for about a minute before she snapped her finger. "So what I'm going to be learning to do is to amplify some of the electricity in my body to be used in element manipulation?"

"That is correct Ino. What it also means though is that you'll also have to learn how to block the amplified electricity so that it doesn't come back and shock you. Too big of a shock can actually cause your brain to shutdown or become damaged, and that would be a bad thing." Ino nodded in complete seriousness, picking up that even though this was the best thing they could do to get her started it would still be at least somewhat dangerous to herself. "A good thing about this is that it will definitely increase not only your chakra control, but it will increase your chakra reserves very quickly." When Naruto saw Ino getting excited about that part he decided to quickly bring her back down to earth. "However, don't go thinking that just because the exercise is good for raising your reserves quickly that you'll be catching up to Sasuke or much later myself any time soon in chakra reserves.

"Hehe. Also, don't go thinking that this exercise will be useless to you once you've moved onto a newer and better control exercise." Naruto whispered to her conspiringly.

"I still find myself using the first wind control exercise I ever used frequently on days where it is hot. Your lightning manipulation will be easier for you to start with then it was for me with my wind and Sasuke's fire manipulations. I say this because unlike electricity Sasuke and I have to manipulate our elements outside of our bodies. I'm still not exactly sure the path that Sasuke will go down in his manipulations if he keeps learning, but I have to bleed out some of my chakra into the air around me to manipulate the air around me. I have to use more chakra if I want to do the manipulation from a starting point that is away from my body."

"For an example I'm going to create a breeze that will head towards us from just on the other side of that tree over there. If you want to be sure that I'm really doing the starting point from that tree, I'll guess that it's about twenty feet away from us, then watch the tree's leaves. They will rustle before you feel the gust of wind blow over us, ok?" When Ino nodded and looked towards the tree Naruto did exactly as he said he would. When the small breeze passed them by and ended Ino blinked a few times in surprise before recovering and nodding her head to show that she understood. Naruto smiled to this.

"Ok then, Sasuke should be back any second now to start his fire so you better get started. I'll watch your first few attempts and see if I can help you improve. When Sasuke gets his fire started though I'd like you to stop until I finish getting Sasuke started." When Ino threw a quick glare at him he was quick to explain his request. "I only ask this because what you're going to do is a little dangerous. So I want to either have Asuma-sensei, Hatake-san, or myself around you when you practice. At least until one of us feels that you have enough experience doing it that there's only a very small chance of you shocking yourself." Ino lost her glare and gave a small blush that was completely lost to Naruto when she heard the concern in his voice. Naruto let go of the breath that caught when Ino glared at him. "Alright then, go ahead and try it out now."

OoOoO

As Naruto said, it was a few minutes before Sasuke got back. It only took thirty seconds for Sasuke to get a decent fire started with a basic fire jutsu and now Naruto and Sasuke sat by the fire on opposing sides of it. Ino stood a few feet away watching with curiosity. Sasuke had of also built a small lean-to to help keep some of the air's moisture away from the fire.

"Alright Sasuke, when you manipulate fire it will really be very similar to what I do when I manipulate air. As I explained to Ino a few minutes ago, what I do to manipulate air is to let some of my chakra bleed out of my body. From there I attach that chakra to the air around me and will it to move how I want it to. Since the element you're going to be manipulating is fire you will have a little more difficulty then I do with my element since yours isn't as plentiful. So right away you will be bleeding out your chakra in a larger amount then I started with in order to attach your chakra to the fire. I would like you to practice bleeding out your chakra first for a few minutes and directing it before you do anything with the fire. It is very simple to do so it should only take you a minute or two to figure out. I'll watch and then when I think you're ready I'll explain a bit more about attaching your chakra to parts of the element that are a distance away from you." Sasuke grunted and nodded to Naruto. He was then head deep into focusing on bleeding out his chakra.

OoOoO

For the rest of the week training continued like it did that first day. They worked on chakra control in the mornings with, or without in Hinata and Naruto's case, Kakashi, then in the afternoon the teams would split into their two groups to practice with their manipulation.

As Naruto told Ino, she was having a hard time with her control exercise. She'd of given herself a large enough static shock to make her hair stand on end more then a few times and Naruto and Sasuke still laughed aloud just thinking about how she looked when that happened.

Since his exercises were simpler, Sasuke was moving along in his fire control at a decent clip. It only took him an hour to be able to manipulate the fire to lean in a specific direction for thirty seconds. Sasuke spent the next two days working on extending the length of time that he could hold the fire into position for. After the third day Sasuke moved onto moving the fire over a distance. He started this off by using his chakra to pick up a small amount of fire from one burning pile of kindling and moving it over to another pile half a meter away from the first. Once he got the hang of that, which only took the rest of the fourth day, he started increasing the range that he could move the fire. He was now up to two meters.

Chouji's exercises from Asuma were simple enough, but he had a difficult time doing it since his chakra control wasn't as great as the others. What he had to do was bleed his chakra out and into a rock. Then he had to lift and throw the rock with just his chakra. As difficult as the exercise was for him, Chouji managed to pick up on it quick and chose to stick to practicing the one exercise. On the last day of training that week he could be seen lifting a ten pound rock with his chakra to the height of his waist, then throwing it a distance of three meters away.

Hinata's training was also simple enough. She just had to bleed out her chakra into some water, and then she would make a small orb that would act like a balloon would hold the water inside of it. She was the slowest in progression with the elemental training. This was because she refused to do her training anywhere else but on top of the water behind Tazuna's house. She was doing two different types of training simultaneous.

As for the third wind user, Shikamaru, Asuma had Shikamaru doing a completely different kind of training then what Naruto would of. When proposed with the idea of being taught Asuma's style of elemental manipulation and fighting he jumped head first into the training and worked his ass off the whole week. He was given Asuma's spare set of trench knives, which strapped onto his waist, and he never took them off. Shikamaru really liked what he saw of his sensei fighting. Also, being in Naruto's team had of caused him to become a little bit more competitive. At least so that he wouldn't get left in the dust and become a burden to his team mates.

With the end of the week's training and the honed skills that they'd of obtained through their improved chakra control the two teams were prepared for what they expected to come in two days. They spent one day resting to prepare themselves while Kakashi went to guard Tazuna and the bridge workers for the whole day.

OoOoO

During the middle of the week though, Naruto had of chosen to stay out late one night after dismissing Ino and Sasuke from training. He started walking towards the lake that he and Hinata had of been trained at the first morning of their training. On his way there he started to walk through the clearing before seeing a girl down on her knees in the middle of the field. She was picking what Naruto guessed to be herbs. He decided to announce his presence to the admittedly cute girl who looked to be slightly older then him.

"Good evening madam." He didn't see any reason not to try and be polite. "I don't think that you should be out this late right now. I've heard that there are some big bad ninja out around here lately." The girl looked up at him when he greeted her politely listened to the rest of his words before replying.

"Good evening to you too sir, if you're correct about the 'big, bad ninja' around here then what, if I may ask, are you doing out here unless you are one of them yourself." She smiled softly at the boy when he blushed upon realizing that she had a point.

He chuckled softly. "No, I'm not one of the big bad ninja. I'm just out for a walk to clear my mind. Assisting my sensei in training my team mates can be pretty tiring." The girl smiled again once she realized that he just gave out a hint that he's much stronger then he seems, even though she already knew that from seeing the end result of the attack that killed one of the other ninja that Gatou had of hired.

"I see." She spoke while giving him a soft glance. "I'm about to head back to where I'm staying. I'm sorry to impose on you like this, but could you walk with me please. I wouldn't mind some company as I walked. Or is it that you have a specific destination in mind for your own walk?"

"Sure, I'll walk with you. I did have a spot I wanted to go, but it's nowhere that needs to be seen. I was just teaching a friend to walk on water a few days ago there." Listening to him she came to the conclusion that out of the gennin on his team he was the only one who knew how to effectively walk on water. She filed that bit of information in mind for later as they started walking in the direction of the town.

"Well then, may I have the name of my escort?" She asked trying to sound shy and joking about it at the same time. She was becoming curious about some of his reactions to her earlier.

"I don't see why not. It is Uzumaki Naruto. I'm a gennin of Konoha. Now may I have your name?" As he spoke, Naruto had of noticed the way that she moved.

"The name is Haku. No last name." They walked in silence for a minute before Haku chose to break the comfortable silence between them. "I'm sorry if I'm intruding on something private, but I was just wondering what your reason was for becoming a ninja."

Hearing the question Naruto instantly became suspicious of the girl even though he managed to hide the suspicion without as much as a twitch on his face. His face never even dropped the smile he still wore. "I became a ninja to show my village that I am not the useless plague that the adults think I am." Haku was surprised at his answer and she showed it. For some reason she was also feeling a little bit of disappointment.

"I see." She spoke up after a few silent seconds. "I'm sorry, for some reason I was expecting you to say something along the lines of being able to protect your precious people." Naruto was surprised to hear this. A second later though the calm smile was back on his face as he answered her statement.

"Before I went into the ninja academy I only had one person that was precious to me. He is the soul of the village, the Hokage. At that time he was literally the only person in the village that showed me any kindness. I guess you can say that I also became a ninja to show the villagers that I'm more then willing to fight to protect those that are precious to me." Naruto smile grew a little bigger as he turned to Haku. "I'm glad that I joined the ninja academy even though my goal at the time was as childish as it was. Since I joined the academy, I've actually added four more people to my list of precious people. My favorite teacher who was always there for me even if he was a little harsh sometimes, my first friend Hinata who has always quietly supported me, my other friend Shikamaru who always kept an ear open for me whether we talked about things we learnt or the few times that he let me vent some of my frustrations from the latest bout of hatred that the villagers threw at me, and last but not least my jounin sensei who has never looked down on me once and respects my opinions and advice." Naruto stopped walking and watched as Haku took two more steps before turning to look at Naruto curiously. Naruto couldn't help but notice that she had a few tears in her eyes. "Pardon me, I'm sorry for burdening you with my problems."

Naruto looked at Haku for another few seconds watching the way she stood there and came to a conclusion that he was going to explore.

"You look sad. I'm guessing that you've only had a few precious people in your life like myself?" She smiled at Naruto before wiping away the tears before they can fall.

"Yes, that is correct Naruto-san. I only have one precious person." She stopped talking for a second to debate with herself about telling this boy a little about her history. "I met him a few days after my parents died. I was living on the street here in wave country and was just looking to survive. Three days after I was forced onto the streets he stood in front of me. He was a traveling man who was traveling and looking for assistance. We just stood there in an alley staring at each other for a while. Finally he spoke up and asked me if I'd be willing to aid him. I knew that he was only looking for someone that he could use for his own ends but I still am happy to this day, just because he saw something in me that was worth something. I will follow him till the day I day." Naruto smiled ruefully having his suspicion confirmed by her story.

Naruto turned and started walking away from her. This confused Haku so she called after him. "Where are you going?"

Naruto turned back to Haku as he was about to step out of view and smiled at her. "I'm going to head back to my team Haku. I know you can take care of yourself so I'll be seeing you later." He turned back around and threw one last comment over his shoulder as he left. "Say hi to Zabuza for me."

Haku was shocked that he'd of figured her out when she spoke so little of Zabuza. She smiled again, this time to herself. She looked back to where Naruto left her view from and hoped that she wouldn't have to kill him when they met again. She couldn't help but get the feeling that Naruto probably thought the same thing.

OoOoO

It was the morning of the tenth day after the encounter with Zabuza on the trail. Asuma and the two gennin teams approached the bridge with their client. They were all on edge, ready for anything that could happen.

When they did step onto the bridge the first thing that they noticed was the unnatural mist that was lightening up ahead of them. Out of the smoke stepped Zabuza and three other figures. They were the hunter-nin and the Demon Brothers.

"Ah, I see that Kakashi-san isn't with us today." Zabuza started his mind games without any preamble.

"Yeah, today's his day off from bridge duty." Asuma spoke up from his position as he unleashed his trench knives from the holder on his wrists and entered a fighting position similar to the praying mantis, except that he ducked down instead of standing on one leg.

"That is too bad; I was hoping to have a rematch against the both of you. Oh well, it just makes it easier for me to kill my target." As he spoke Zabuza took his zanbatou off of his back and held it in front of him in a basic swords stance. "The rest of you know your jobs."

When Zabuza finished his statement the battle started. The first to move was Naruto. He grabbed his fan, which he wore on his back that day, and mimicked Zabuza's stance before popping open the first third of his fan and launching a gust of wind towards Haku.

Haku was quick to dodge the attack and charge towards Naruto only to be met by Hinata who threw a palm strike towards Haku's chest and a roundhouse kick towards Haku's head. Haku dodged to the side of the first strike and ducked under the kick before finding herself kicked in the face by Sasuke who'd of taken his chance to charge in and get the blow in. As Haku flew back a few feet Hinata and Sasuke glanced at each other and nodded to say that they knew they'd need the others help against the hunter-nin.

As that was going on Naruto had of charged after his wind gust to attack Haku but was intercepted by the demon brothers who were quick to take the opportunity to knock Naruto over the side of the bridge and onto the water. When Naruto stood up he looked up to find the brothers falling down after him. Naruto jumped out of the way of their attack to get some distance. Naruto was surprised when they stopped their attack and spoke to each other, not even caring if Naruto heard them.

"You know brother I don't think we should hold back on this kid this time." Naruto was surprised to learn that they purposefully lost in their first encounter. He quickly sent his mind to work and came up with an answer as to what they meant.

"So you purposefully lost in our first encounter just so that the hunter-nin I saw afterwards, who I'm guessing to be the same one as up there on the bridge, could get an estimate on my team's abilities."

"By golly, the brat is right younger brother." The taller of the two spoke.

"Maybe we should 'give him a prize'." The shorter suggested. Naruto could've sworn that they were smirking behind their masks, and he didn't like that at all.

When the shorter one lifted his gauntlet and pointed it at Naruto he prepared himself for anything. A few seconds later the fight was on.

OoOoO

End Chapter

OoOoO

End AN: Wow, that chapter was much longer then I expected it to be. I'm sorry to say that I've actually forgotten what the Demon Brother's actual names are. So I'm just describing them as the taller and shorter one.

So I finally throw in some real action to this story. I'd like to hear what you people think of it, ways I might be able to improve on the fight scenes, etc. I didn't really say much about it but Naruto does consider Chouji to be an acquaintance, not a friend really. It's actually more like a 'He's a friend of my friend' situation.

I hope you like my idea of having Naruto teach Ino and Sasuke elemental manipulation. The plan behind this is that it was the beginning of Naruto making two new friends. If you're wondering Naruto was talking about when he was describing to Ino about the way that she'd have to make electricity, I'd just like to say that another way of describing it is that it is the same thing as Kakashi talks about in the Manga about super-activating one's flesh, like with the chidori. I just said it as I saw to what Kakashi must do in greater detail. Surely he must use some sort of precaution to prevent himself from electrocuting himself.

For those of you who have guessed, then yes, I am going in the direction of Sasuke's fire manipulation that many of you may think I am. To give a hint to those who picked up on it I'll add a little hint to confirm it. No, I do not own Full Metal Alchemist. If that doesn't confirm the path of Sasuke's training, then I don't know what will before Sasuke finally uses it in a fight.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I know that I said that I was going to end the wave arc this chapter, but I just wound up going into way more then I originally planned so I decided to split it up into two chapters. The end of the next chapter will explain what my custom arc is going to be. I'll just hint that Naruto gets into a major one-on-one battle with a certain powerhouse.

I'll be seeing you all later. I almost can't believe that I made this chapter around 12k words. That's 24 pages in Microsoft Word, nine longer then what I originally planned on.


	7. 6: The Battle for the Bridge

Just to let you all why I'm not really answering that many of your reviews right now, I'd just like to tell you that my family's satellite had a part on it screw us over. I've actually been off the net since the 20th of January. I got the replacement part for it now, but unfortunately the dish is still being an idiot. So for the next little while I'm stuck using an internet café that's a good half hour drive away from my home when I want to check my e-mail or post a new chapter. I hate it how I get so many e-mails at once. If I leave my e-mail alone for more than three days I've got over 150 to look through, and at least sixty of those are from this site. (shrugs shoulders) Oh well. I can't really do much about my problem until I'm able to get a stinking tech for the dish out here (The closest one is a two hour drive away and I don't have the money at the time to pay the guy).

As for the reviewer who made comments on my grammar. I'm glad you did that. I guess it brings me back to something I've been trying to ask of people for the longest of times, ever since I started writing really. 'Would somebody please be my beta-reader??' I know that sometimes it may seem that some parts were over-wordy, this is something that another one of you reviewers pointed out to me with the last chapter, stretching out sentences longer then they need to be or just forgetting to put coma's in places. I'd just like it if someone would be willing to at least proof-read chapters for me and point out these mistakes if they see them so that I can correct them before posting.

Anyways, that's enough about that stuff. I'd just like to announce to you all that from here on out the story will really start moving. What I mean by that is that unless I feel that it is absolutely necessary, I will not be throwing out as many 'teaching' or 'description' sessions from Naruto or anyone else. I will be moving into more actual conversations, yes you will be hearing the others talk more too (gasp, OMG). Yeah, yeah, I figure that enough of you have argued that, that in the last chapter I started trying to include other people as more then just background characters.

The last thing I'd like to say before I start the chapter is that for at least this chapter, any techniques that I don't know the Japanese name of will be written in English instead.

Well, I guess that I have more to say but I'm going to save that for the end of the chapter. As what seems to be usual, please enjoy.

OoOoO

Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

OoOoO

Attention: This chapter is the first where the rating comes into effect. There will be death and gore (some of which will be described in detail) as well as harsh language (aka: swearing) in a scene or two.

Reader Discretion is advised. (I've so wanted to say that for a while now.)

OoOoO

Naruto and the Demon Brothers stood on the surface of the canal a distance from the bridge. All three of the combatants were breathing hard. This was the first small break in what had of been Naruto's first ferocious battle.

With eyes darting between his opponents, Naruto was busy analyzing the last few minutes of the fight and trying to come up with a strategy to rip apart the excellent teamwork that the brothers were showing so far.

Right from the beginning of the battle Gozu, and Meizu were performing an excellent tag team attack from a range of ten meters away from Naruto. Naruto was sure that if it wasn't for the fact that he was capable of moving at amazing speeds himself, then the Demon Brothers would have been constantly circling him as they alternated attacks with their chains and a few minor water jutsu thrown in as well to throw Naruto off. It seemed to Naruto that in this confrontation they were favoring weighted chains with spike on them; the two were no longer just using the one chain that connected their gauntlets the last time he saw them.

Any further thought on Naruto's part was suddenly interrupted when the weighted end of Gozu's chain flew straight at his face. Just after Naruto dodged the chain by ducking, the chain suddenly hit its distance but would just reel itself back to its owner just as fast, if not faster, than when it was originally thrown.

'I guess they're channeling chakra into their chains to do that.' No sooner than that thought crossed his mind was he forced to dodge another chain, this one thrown by Meizu, which came from his left side. Naruto dodged it by rolling to the side on top of the water's surface away from Gozu to gain some distance. Naruto was forced to immediately jump backwards into the air as soon as he got back to his feet by another attack from Gozu. Their attack pattern continued for two minutes like that as Naruto continued to dodge until he made his second mistake in the battle; the first was when he got blindsided by the brothers while he was on top of the bridge. Naruto jumped.

Another unseen smirk grew across the brothers' faces as they jumped into the air after Naruto. What followed was a completely unexpected move.

Meizu threw the weighted end of the chain that he was holding at his brother. Naruto's look of surprise intensified as Gozu caught the chain and attached it to his gauntlet. With a slight flare of chakra the chain between the two gauntlets became visibly tenser and flew towards Naruto.

Naruto was quick to pull the fan from his back and parry the unexpected way of attack over his head. This however was what the Demon Brothers wanted.

Naruto looked in fear as he suddenly realized what was happening. The chain quickly looped over his head so that it was loose around Naruto a couple times. Naruto saw the slight glint that entered the brothers' eyes as they spoke in unison.

"**One down."**

Time seemed to slow down for Naruto as he watched the chain start to enclose on him. A thought entered his mind and Naruto suddenly gave a small smirk that made the brothers wary.

'This will have to work.' Was the thought as Naruto started to implement his idea.

Gozu and Meizu deciding not to risk their opponent escaping sped up the process of closing their chains, which would tear Naruto to ribbons. They were surprised however when for a brief second it looked like Naruto had of landed on solid ground before leaping off the air itself straight up.

The two brothers landed a second from their jump and stared up in surprise. Naruto was now forty feet above them and they became extremely wary when Naruto opened his fan for the first time since they started fighting off of the bridge.

Naruto's head was down facing his chest and his left arm was pointing straight down with his hand open as his right arm was now crossed across his chest so that the fan that arm held was over his shoulder. Naruto's legs were tucked underneath him and on the fan the brothers' could see the design of a Chinese dragon was visible from their position. The temporary stiffness in Naruto's body quickly told the brothers that something big was coming. Their thoughts were confirmed as they felt a pretty large chakra spike that was followed by the downwards swing of his fan.

"**Ninpo: Kazeitachi!!" **

That loud shout had Gozu and Meizu fleeing in separate directions after they dropped the chain that was connected to their gauntlets. They hoped that they would be able to continue dodging the attack until it died down. They could see as the slicing winds were tearing into the water surface around them causing parts of it to jump into the air.

The brothers didn't managed to keep from major damage but evading was made a lot harder since the disruptions in the water caused by Naruto's attack was making it harder for them to get a solid footing on the water.

A few seconds later when the attack died down the brothers quickly looked back into the sky for Naruto. It was too late for Gozu however as he looked up just a second before he was hit in the head by a mass of wind chakra and was pounded down underneath the water's surface amidst what was the sound of Gozu's neck breaking from the blunt force of the attack..

"Gozu!" Meizu shouted in worry seeing his brother get knocked below the water by something that he was unable to see.

Naruto landed a distance away from Meizu and quickly flipped through four hand seals; Naruto's fan was back on his back.

Meizu was only seeing red now since he'd of just watch his brother get killed by someone who he considered to be a little wannabe. He'd of never really believed the report from Haku on the boy's attack that killed Gado's other hired ninja in their first meeting with these teams. Now he was looking at the proof that this little greenhorn was quite capable of killing.

Gozu's corpse was now floating at the top of the water and his skin was starting to turn a pale color as the heat rapidly left his body due to the cold water. Gozu's body itself looked to be alright though as soon as you reached the neck, you could tell that his head had of been forcibly knocked backwards with enough force that the skin on the front of his neck had of ripped open. The grievous wound was steadily poring blood into the surrounding water as the heart tried to deliver more blood to the body's brain. The look on Gozu's face was one of complete shock. One could tell that it was literally the last second of his life when he realized that he was going to die.

After fuming with tears coming down his face during the time that it took Naruto to complete his hand seals Meizu became enraged and gave a battle cry as he was about to get revenge for his brother.

"**I'll fucking kill you, you bastard!"**

"**Wind: Air Bullet!"** The phrase was followed by a deep intake of breath from Naruto as he held the last seal to his mouth.

The intake of breath was followed by an identical mass of wind chakra flying at Meizu. Meizu may not have been able to see the mass of chakra but he was smart enough to get out of the attacks way by jumping to the side. Meizu didn't even try to watch where the attack would stop. His mind was now completely on evading the near-continuous barrage of chakra that was now flying towards him from Naruto.

What followed was a thirty second game of 'Cat and Mouse' as Naruto continued to launch wind bullets at Meizu who was continually dodging. Each attack would cause a small geyser of water to launch into the air from where the bullet would strike the water's surface. During the thirty seconds that the game lasted, the two had of unconsciously made their way back towards the bridge where more fighting was going on.

OoOoO

Back at Tazuna's house Kakashi was still asleep. He was dreaming of things that are a little too adult to be put safely into this story.

A minute later he was awake and slowly putting on his clothing while mumbling something about a banana, chocolate syrup, whipped cream and a beautiful pair of red headed twins who tasted good with the extra toppings.

Stepping out of his room Kakashi began to slowly trudge his way downstairs and towards the kitchen. As he was about ten feet away from the entrance Tsuname suddenly came running out of the kitchen before bumping into Kakashi. Kakashi just proceeded to walk around her and into the kitchen where what his tired mind was registering as two guys yelling at someone to stop running.

As he passed the threshold into the kitchen suddenly the yelling stopped and two thugs, they looked a little like samurai he supposed stood there with their hands on the hilt of their swords looking at him nervously.

Just as he did with Tsuname, who was now peeking back around the corner into the kitchen looking worried, he stepped between the two thugs and walked the rest of the distance across the kitchen to the bubbling liquid, a gift from the gods themselves. He poured himself a cup and took a sip, pulling down his face mask to do so while he was still facing away from everyone.

It was silent for another two minutes while Kakashi finished his coffee and he looked much more alive now. He pulled his mask back over his face and turned back around to face the three, no make that four now that Inari just poked his head from behind his mother's legs, people who were staring at him. Kakashi stood there looking around at the four people before cutting his way through the awkward silence.

"Is there something I could help you with?" The question was asked as he poured himself another cup of coffee. Everyone sweatdropped at his question.

Upon receiving no answer from anybody for thirty seconds Kakashi closed his one visible eye and shrugged. "Your loss."

No sooner then the words left his mouth then the two thugs lost something as well. That was their consciousness.

Tsunami and Inari could only stare after the cycloptic jounin as he slowly walked out the front door with his coffee in one hand and the thugs being dragged behind him by their collars. "I'm going to head towards the bridge. I might be needed there."

With that, Kakashi was gone.

OoOoO

Asuma was currently in a deadlock with Zabuza. Zabuza was trying to press his sword down on Asuma who was using his trench knives crossed in front of him to keep the blade from slicing him in half.

'Damn it, was he holding back during our first encounter?' That was the thought that went through Asuma's mind as he finally broke the deadlock by swinging his knives to the side where the force of Zabuza's pushing would cause the large sword to crash into the ground. Asuma was quick to take advantage of Zabuza's misbalance by kicking the other jounin in the stomach. The kick launched Zabuza a few feet backwards where Zabuza did a back flip to land on his feet. Zabuza was still holding his sword.

"Not bad. And I thought that I wouldn't be facing anyone challenging without the copy-nin here." Zabuza spoke as he settled his blade onto his shoulder.

In contrast to the fierce fight that they'd of just took a break from, Zabuza wasn't breathing as hard as Asuma thought he should have been. Asuma himself really needed this break. It was a lot harder than he thought it would be to hold off Zabuza's sword strikes.

"I have to wonder how much longer it will take the Demon Brothers to kill that blonde haired brat. I expected them to be back at least three minutes ago." Zabuza said this all in a controversial tone, as if he wasn't talking about the fact that his underlings were busy trying to kill a boy at least five years their minor.

Asuma had to admit to himself that he was worried about Naruto. He knew that the boy was quite strong, but the fact of the matter was that Naruto was facing off against two experienced chuunin who were well known for their skills in tag team attacks. There was also the fact that only five minutes had of passed since the start of the fight and Zabuza was confident enough to believe that despite the showing of Naruto's strength when he managed to kill that other jounin with his Grid Blade attack that the Demon Brothers would be able to take care of Naruto so quickly.

While Asuma's thoughts quickly flew through his head, he said nothing. Zabuza though managed to catch the worried glint in Asuma's eyes. Zabuza chuckled to himself before speaking up again.

"Hehehe, I take it by the look in your eye that you're unsure of your student's ability to survive." As soon as Zabuza finished his statement he noticed another glint enter Asuma's eyes. This one was of a little bit of humor as Asuma's gaze turned a little bit to his right over the edge of the bridge. Of course Asuma didn't take his eyes completely off of his opponent.

Seeing Asuma glance over the edge of the bridge Zabuza quickly expanded his senses and felt a large build up of chakra.

"**Wind: Great Break Through!"** The loud shout was enough to stop the other battle on another part of the bridge. It was only three minutes into the battle when Haku was forced to use her Ice Mirrors to keep up with her opponents' attacks.

The shout was followed by a large gale of wind that actually knocked a small portion of the bridge into the air. Amongst the rubble flew Meizu who managed to avoid the most damaging part of the attack. Meizu had of just been carried up into the air behind the attack before falling from a height of fifteen feet above the bridge.

As Meizu fell onto the bridge he absorbed most of the impact by rolling sideways with his momentum instead of just landing flat on his back.

A few seconds later there was another gust of wind that suddenly blew upwards. This one however was just an updraft that was carrying Naruto into the air as he was crouching on his open fan.

Upon reaching the top of the updraft Naruto quickly flipped off of the fan, grabbing the edge of the fan and closing it as he fell. Naruto landed gracefully on the bridge before quickly assessing the situation.

As Naruto was assessing the situation Zabuza noticed that one person was missing.

"Meizu." Zabuza called to the said chuunin. "Where is your brother?" As Zabuza spoke a feeling of dread was forming in the pit of his stomach. Despite what others thought, Zabuza did care for his charges.

Meizu was just starting to get up from his fall, but it was Naruto who answered Zabuza.

"Dead." That bland statement caught everyone off guard. The Konoha-nin didn't know that Naruto could sound so lost.

"**I didn't mean to kill him. I was just aiming my wind bullet to knock him out." **Naruto was crying openly now as he shouted towards Zabuza and his sensei after whirling to face them.

"**I didn't think that my attack would have snapped his neck instead of just knocking him unconscious."** Naruto fell to his knees as he started to quietly sob to himself.

Everyone was in shock due to Naruto's emotional actions except for Meizu, who'd of listened to everything that Naruto said. For the first time since his brother's death he realized that the blonde boy was hurting as well, even if Naruto wasn't hurting in the same manner as Meizu himself was. Now there was just one thing that he needed to know.

"Why the fuck do you care, brat?" Meizu asked Naruto calmly as the remaining Demon Brother stood to his feet. Naruto was about to answer, but he was cut off by Meizu. "You had no connection to my brother, so why the hell do you give a fuck about his life?"

Meizu was now completely on his feet and limping towards Naruto, who now had his head down facing the ground. A second later when Meizu was ten feet away from Naruto's position, Naruto looked up and met Meizu's eyes.

"Because he mattered." Naruto's response caused Meizu to stop where he stood.

"What does that…" Meizu never got to finish his sentence as Naruto continued talking as if he wasn't finished talking in the first place, completely cutting Meizu off.

"Because I know that he matters to you." Naruto now looked away from Meizu and back to the ground. "Unlike that other ninja I wound up killing in the forest, I know that you and your brother had a strong connection. I've never had any family so I know that any family members that you do have should be cherished."

Naruto's words struck a cord in several of the ninja standing there. It was known amongst the other Konoha-gennin that Naruto was an orphan, but they didn't know that Naruto had such strong beliefs about family. The only exceptions to them were his teammates, who'd of known of Naruto's beliefs for just under a year now. It saddened the two of them to see Naruto sharing Meizu's grief though.

Everyone was paying so much attention to the conversation between Meizu and Naruto that they hadn't of noticed the one hundred chakra signatures that was gathered just behind Meizu and through some fog until a spear was suddenly protruding from the young chuunin's chest. Everyone had the immediate response of jumping away from the direction that the spear came from, gaining distance to better scan the new threat.

Meizu looked down at the spear that was protruding through his chest in disbelief. The spear that stuck out of his chest was a crudely made one though the point which had Meizu's blood dribbling down it was quite sharp. The spear was in such a position that it had of gone through his right lung. Meizu's blood was dripping off of the tip of the spear onto the ground making dripping sounds in what was otherwise complete silence that had of covered the ninja.

Meizu coughed spraying blood from his mouth onto the bridge. Meizu then turned around to look into what remained of the rapidly disappearing mist only to receive another flying spear, this one went through the chuunin's heart, killing him instantly.

An evil sounding laughter then floated through the air as a large group of mercenaries became visible where the mist just left. Asuma quickly counted that there were ninety five scruffy-looking mercenaries there along with four ninja, each wielding a spear just like the ones that killed Meizu, and a short man in a business suit who was now sneering at the ninja from the back of the group.

"I hate whiney brats, don't you?" The short man asked rhetorically. "Maybe I should have had you killed first brat." Gato said the second sentence as he pointed to Naruto, who was the closest to the mercenary army.

Naruto wasn't paying too much attention though, as he stared at Meizu's corpse which was on its knees and being supported by the two spears through his chest.

"Feh, what kind of ninja gets emotional. All of you should just be good little tools, killing at the whim of your superiors, and then dying when we're finished with you."

Gato's words struck a cord in Naruto who was now standing to his feet even though his head hung low.

"You think that family is important brat? Well let me tell you that what you believe is a load of shit." Gato laughed obnoxiously at that. "All that matters in this world is looking out for number one." Gato pointed his thumb to emphasize his point. "People should be used like you ninja's just to further one's own position in the world."

"Too bad that older brother's body isn't here. I would love to see that idiot's corpse."

To those who were even a little sensitive to chakra, they could feel a dark force begin to press down upon them. All of the ninja on the bridge were trying to pinpoint the source of the thick energy; however, it was Hinata who realized the source first once she activated her blood limit. It scared her to see something so dark emanating from her crush.

'Kyubi!' Asuma suddenly thought in a panic as his eyes went to Naruto who was beginning to form a visible aura of chakra around him. Unlike usual though, this chakra was red in color as opposed to the blue color that Naruto usually had when he was focusing a large amount of chakra.

If Asuma or anybody were able to see Naruto's face then they would have been scared shitless. Naruto's whisker marks had of just expanded and thickened. His canine's then grew half an inch as Naruto's eyes became red slits.

It was at this time that Zabuza noticed that Asuma was staring at the blonde boy and he looked at the boy himself, instantly realizing that he was the source of the malevolent energy. Zabuza then entered a guarded position that the others assumed was to defend himself from the mercs.

OoOoO

'That bastard' Naruto thought to himself as he continued to stare at Meizu's body. 'How dare that bastard disrespect them?'

As Naruto thought that, he began to see everything in a red hue. It took him a second to realize it, but the red hue was due to a weird aura that was beginning to pore out of his skin. Along with the red energy though came a voice.

'**Hahahahaha, finally it works.' **Naruto was startled for a moment by the malevolent voice, but before he could question it the voice spoke again.

'**Shut up and listen brat, the last thing you need right now is for your sensei to assume the worst. If you die, I die after all.'**

Naruto was puzzled by the voice's comment. Naruto was about to try to speak again, but was interrupted.

'**I'm only giving you this energy because I don't want to die here. I wouldn't suggest telling anyone other then the guy smoking that cancer stick about me since anyone else will think that you're insane. The last thing we need is people from your village renewing their attempts to kill us.' **Naruto flinched hearing that comment.

'**Now if you have anything to say, say it in your mind. I will hear you.'**

Deciding to trust the voice for the moment, Naruto spoke his question in his mind.

'Who are you?'

'**That is not important right now.'** The voice spoke again. '**What is important though is our survival. Now what I want you to do is to let your body move naturally once you attack these weaklings. My chakra will do the work for you. Now go.' **Naruto could have sworn that the voice seemed eager, but it was his imagination wasn't it. He would've continued with that thought if it wasn't for the red haze of the aura that was still coming out of his skin.

Naruto suddenly snapped back to reality. He then noticed that he was still staring through the red haze at Meizu's body. It seemed that the whole short conversation with that voice had of only taken a second, and yet it was definitely longer then that.

Naruto shoved those thoughts out of his head as he chose to do what the voice suggested.

Naruto's eyes suddenly snapped up and stared at the first mercenary. The last thing the guy saw were the deep red slits that were now in Naruto's eyes before he found his head cut off with a kunai.

"Shit." Asuma exclaimed as he saw his student jump into the mercenaries. Asuma proclamation brought most of the others out of their awe. Asuma was quick to bark out his order to the gennin. "Teams seven and nine, this is going to be too much for you. Your duty is to protect the client. I am going to help Naruto." Asuma was then quick to charge into the midst of the mercenaries with his trench knives out in order to help Naruto out.

"Haku!" Zabuza called back to the hunter-nin. "Our contract with Gato has been terminated. Right now we will aid the Konoha-nin in fighting back Gato's mercenaries. We will decide what else to do after this." With that said Zabuza charged forward and with the first swing of his sword Zabuza had of decapitated two mercenaries before he was forced to block a thrown spear.

Haku quickly charged forward and ended the spear-throwing ninja's life by sending a senbon needle through the man's temple.

Naruto was in the center of the mercenaries, mercilessly (AN: I like that choice of words) working his way through the small horde towards Gato. Naruto was decapitating mercenary here and there, just slitting throats with his kunai, or even severing spines and breaking or severing limbs. A few seconds later Naruto broke through the back lines of the mercenaries covered in blood himself. Most of the blood was not his, but Naruto wasn't unscathed either.

Naruto stood facing Gato for a second as he caught his breath, and the mercenaries as well as Gato himself could see the boy's wounds closing right in front of their eyes.

A second later two of Gato's other hired ninja landed between Naruto and Gato holding their spears in a combat stance that Naruto wasn't able to recognize at the time.

Naruto snarled at the two ninja before he threw his hands forward, one at each of them. What came next was a surprise to the two as they saw two giant claws launch, which upon hitting them caused the two ninja to burst in flames and turn to ash in less than two seconds.

Gato at this time had have fallen on his ass upon seeing the two ninja get incinerated by Naruto. He was now stumbling backwards crawling as he stared fearfully at what was an incarnation of death as far as he was concerned.

Naruto took several steps towards Gato before stopping in front of him and leering down at the businessman with a glare filled with enough killing intent that if the man was any less healthy than he already was, then he would have had a heart attack right there. As it was the man was clutching his chest painfully since he was on the verge of having one anyways.

After a few seconds of staring down at the man Naruto sneered at him and with a deft motion drew out a kunai and dealt the deathblow by throwing the kunai as hard as he could right between the eyes. Considering that Naruto still had the red chakra flowing through him, the strength behind the throw was quite amazing since Gato was sent reeling backwards over twenty meters and over the side of the bridge.

Naruto then turned around and walked past all of the stunned mercenaries. They were shocked that this boy not only managed to fight his way through them, but also managed to kill two more chuunin ranked missing-nin and their boss. Needless to say they were very intimidated by the boy now and as he walked by them several of the mercenaries were already jumping off of the bridge to get away from him. As Naruto passed the last of them they were quick to turn and flee back to the boats they came on and get away from the bridge.

Naruto stood stopped where he was a few seconds later as his senses told him that the danger was over. At that point Naruto dropped to the ground unconscious.

OoOoO

A few days after the battle on the bridge Naruto was up and about again. It was midday and Naruto was walking through the forest. Naruto reached the same clearing where he'd of met and talked to Haku. Naruto's mind was flying from one thought with an attached emotion to another.

After a few more seconds of that he walked over to the spot in the center of the clearing where Haku had of been picking herbs for her precious person. Naruto smiled to himself as he thought of his meeting with the girl that he was so similar to. Naruto sat down where she had of been kneeling and lay on his back to relax for a little bit.

"Hello Naruto-san." Naruto cursed himself immediately for not being more alert. He sat up and was about to speak when he sensed the person behind him and lean against Naruto's back.

"How have you been?" Naruto now recognized the voice as being Haku's. Naruto tensed slightly at that realization. He took a second to gather himself before speaking.

"I'm alright." He said and was about to continue when he was interrupted.

"I'm not mad at you." Naruto was surprised at the statement and turned to look at Haku. He couldn't see her face since she was facing away from him, but Naruto could see that she was wearing the same kimono that she wore when they first met in this clearing. Naruto turned away from her as he spoke up again himself.

"You're talking about Gozu, aren't you?" Haku nodded which since their backs were together Naruto was able to feel the movement.

"I lied to you the other day when I said that Zabuza-san was the only precious person in my life. I grew to see them as brothers, but I knew that they would eventually die." Naruto heard her sniffle a bit. "I do not blame you for killing Gozu. When you cried in front of everyone on the bridge I was able to se the genuine sorrow in your eyes. So no, I don't hate you for killing Gozu."

Hearing that, Naruto couldn't help but feel slightly relieved by those words. He started to ponder on the unexpected feelings that came with Haku's explanation but his pondering was stopped when Haku spoke again.

"If you don't mind, there is something I would like to do." Naruto sat there still facing away from Haku. After a few seconds Haku decided that it was safe to continue. "In a day Zabuza-san and I will be leaving Wave Country, but I would like to be able to see you whenever possible in the future, so what I would like to do is an old Hunter-nin tracking technique that was scrapped since it had a large flaw."

Naruto's curiosity was peaked upon hearing that Haku knew a technique that Hunter-nin used to use. "Please continue."

"The technique was supposed to make it so that the Hunter-nin would be able to sense the person they were hunting if they were within a fifteen mile radius of each other. The part of the technique that was flawed and caused the Hunter-nin to scrap it was when they realized that the technique worked both ways. Both people would be able to sense each other when they were within fifteen miles of each other." Naruto nodded seeing where that technique would quickly become a turn off for ninja. After a few more seconds of thought Naruto realized exactly what Haku was proposing.

"So you want to use this technique so that we'll be able to find each other easier if it became necessary." Naruto felt the motions of another nod against his back so he started thinking.

After a few minutes Naruto smiled to himself and stood up. Haku was surprised by the motion and nearly fell onto her back before catching herself. She then stood up and looked at Naruto, who was already staring into her eyes.

After a few seconds of silence Naruto spoke up as a grin came to his face. "What are you waiting for? Tell me what needs to be done."

As Naruto spoke Haku couldn't help but let a grateful smile cross her face. She then went into an explanation of how the technique was done.

After the two were finished and the technique was done they prepared to part their separate ways.

Haku smiled as she felt the bond created by the technique setting in. She then smiled before doing something that surprised both Naruto and herself. She quickly leaned over and kissed Naruto on the cheek.

As they both started blushing Haku quickly said her farewell and left the clearing before the words she spoke to Naruto could settle in.

When Naruto realized through the new bond that Haku was moving away from his position at a high speed, Naruto found himself staring in the direction that Haku had of left for a few minutes before Naruto left the clearing heading back towards Tazuna's house where Naruto didn't know that the two teams were preparing to leave.

As he left the clearing Naruto decided that he wouldn't tell anyone of his meeting with Haku.

OoOoO

"Ah Naruto, I'm glad to see that you're back." Naruto looked across the yard from where he'd of just entered and saw Asuma standing there with a smile on his face. "You should go and start packing Naruto. The Hokage has sent a messenger-nin to us with a note asking us leave right away."

"What? Why?" Naruto asked with a confused look on his face. "Aren't we needed to stay here in order to protect the old man until his bridge is complete?"

Asuma's smile never left his face as Naruto asked those questions. "No Naruto. I already sent a report to my father about what happened at the bridge and he has decided that only one team needs to stay for the remainder of the time since Gatou has been dealt with."

"Oh." Naruto asked as a look of sorrow flashed across his face before Naruto covered it with a grin. "So are we going onto another super cool mission already then?"

Asuma outright laughed at Naruto's newest question. He'd of seen Naruto's sorrow but he knew that Naruto was dealing with it the best way he knew how. So Asuma continued talking.

"I don't know if you'll think its cool, but we do have another mission to go on."

As they were talking Naruto had of crossed the yard and was now standing in front of Asuma.

"Are we saving another country from an ugly oppressor?" That question was asked with such a straight face that Asuma couldn't help but burst out laughing.

Naruto smirked, seeing Asuma's response to his question before he interrupted his sensei with another question.

"So what are we going to be doing then?"

After the extra few seconds that it took Asuma to get over his laughter Asuma stood up straight again and took a serious air that Naruto didn't miss.

"The Hokage left towards Sunagakure for a diplomatic meeting with the Kazekage a day ago. We are to leave here and travel quickly to the town of Oshiwa (I made that name up.) where we will meet up with him and his small escort of Chuunin. There we will join the escort and accompany Hokage-sama to Sunagakure where you and your teammates will be expected to enjoy a day's break where permission has been granted for the three of you to enjoy a day of shopping and tourism." Asuma smirked as he knew that Naruto picked up on the hint that was dropped in there exclusively for him.

'So, the old man wants me to do some shopping where I won't be thrown out of shops or overcharged. That's sweet.'

Naruto gave a soft, almost sad smile as he thought about that. Naruto then looked around quickly and when he saw that nobody was around he quickly stepped forward and gave Asuma a hug around the waist.

"Thanks sensei" was the words spoken by Naruto as he then disengaged himself from his sensei before running inside to quickly pack his things.

OoOoO

Two hours later Team Nine stood on a boat at a dock. Gathered around them were Team Seven and many other people who were there to see the team off.

Team Nine stood at the back of the boat as it sailed back to the mainland waving at the people who gathered to see them off. None of them waved as enthusiastically as Naruto though. To him this was Naruto's first taste of what it was like to be admired and appreciated by people for things that he'd of done. Naruto knew that he didn't save the country alone and that they were showing equal appreciation for his teammates and sensei, but this being Naruto's first time in a situation like this Naruto wasn't thinking about that. As his team headed inside of the boat to rest for the hour trip on the boat Naruto stayed at the back of the boat watching the gathered people disappear as the boat grew further away.

OoOoO

A blonde girl of fifteen years woke up with a start. She sat there holding her face for a few seconds before wiping sweat from her forehead. She sat there thinking about the dream; no, it was more of a nightmare that she'd of just had.

She remembered watching a battle on a bridge where after a little while a part of the bridge blew up with the body of what she recognized as a Kiri missing-nin flying up in the air. The body was quickly followed by a blonde haired boy with the most intense blue eyes she'd of ever seen who wound up crying and shouting about something but she couldn't hear anything except for the wind blowing by her ears.

After a minute of the boy crying she saw the man who was blown through the bridge get impaled by a spear and after a few minor things she watched as the boy grew an aura of red energy. The was the point where the dream truly seemed to turn into a nightmare as she watched the boy dive headlong into the group of mercenaries and a few ninja that was there and the boy was literally tearing them apart.

A few more minutes passed where at the end of the time the mercenaries were fleeing, she saw the boy standing back where he'd of been. She watched the empty look in his eyes and couldn't help but feel a little bit of pity. It was at that point when she saw the boy starting to fall over that she woke up.

She thought over the weird dream that was filled with people that she didn't even know until a realization hits her.

'That boy's chakra was similar to Gaara's.' The thought scared her even more then what she dreamed, but she couldn't help but wonder if that dream was something that really happened.

Looking over at her clock she saw that it was only a half hour to sunrise, so she decided to get up now and think more upon the dream later.

What she didn't even think about was if there was a reason for her to have a dream like that. Little did she know that she would have a part in the life of the blonde boy.

As she got out of bed and stretched unconsciously showing off her naked and well-developed figure to no one Temari put on a house coat and grabbed her ninja garb before heading to the shower down the hall.

OoOoO

Several feet above where Temari awoke another set of eyes shoot open. This person's eyes didn't shoot open because of a dream or a nightmare though. This person's eyes shot open from feeling what to him was an unusual chakra, or what was left of it, wash over him from the south.

Gaara turned his head and stared towards the horizon to the south before he heard a voice in his head speak up.

'The Kyuubi is coming.'

Gaara's eyebrows nit in temporary confusion as he closed his eyes and thought about that statement until he remembered one of the few times that the Shukaku had of talked to him seriously. The conversation was about the other tailed demons which Shukaku seriously warned Gaara to stay away from no matter what.

Gaara knew that out of all of the tailed demons, the Kyuubi was the only one that Shukaku respected. That made Gaara curious about the being and he promised himself to look into that being if he ever had the chance.

Gaara opened his eyes again and took another look to the south before closing his eyes again and turning around to resume his meditation.

OoOoO

End Chapter.

OoOoO

End AN: There we go! I've had writers block for the last while. I just couldn't figure out how to write the end of the battle and the meeting between Haku and Naruto afterwards. I guess it didn't help either that I was caught up on playing 'Yugioh GX: Spirit Caller' on my Nintendo DS either.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I know that it isn't as long as the last chapter, but in all actuality I never expected this chapter to be as long as it turned out to be.

Now for those of you who send reviews, I would like to hear your opinions on how I did with my first ever long fight scene. It would be greatly appreciated, and along with those comments I also wouldn't mind hearing your suggestions on how I could improve future fight scenes.

Lastly, I know that the last scene with Temari was unnecessary for the flow of the story, but I wanted to write that in there. I've decided to make more to the character of Temari then what I see in most fics. It won't happen right away with the next chapter, but eventually Temari will be seeing a lot more scene-time and character development then you see in the Anime/Manga. I like Temari's character a lot and enjoy writing about her. There are a few other girls that I like as well and will be writing about as well.

That's all I have to say for now and I will tell you all now that I'm finally past the last point in the story that I was unsure of how to deal with for quite a while so chapters will hopefully be coming out sooner, though I can't say for sure since I just got a new job and will be discussing my work schedule with my new boss within the next few days.

Adios for now. Cloud1239999 signing off.


	8. 7: Welcome to Suna I'll be your guide

OoOoO

Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

OoOoO

Naruto was bored.

Now this wasn't anything new to the blonde boy. Then again, Naruto tended to be bored when doing anything other then reading, pranking, training, eating ramen, or talking to his friends.

Naruto took a look around as he and the group he was with walked slowly down the dirt road that was between Konoha and Suna. Team Nine met up with Old Man Sarutobi and his escorts in Oshiwa where they continued the next morning on their way to Suna.

The group continued on in silence for several more minutes until they hit the top of the last mountain between the two cities.

Looking down the mountain and into the desert on the other side a realization hit Naruto and he stopped in his tracks. Sarutobi chuckled when he realized why Naruto suddenly stopped where he was.

"We're going to take a break now." The old man spoke up. "I would take this time to change into something better suited for the desert Naruto." Naruto was wearing his all-black ninja outfit that he wore in the wave country.

Seeing Naruto's sheepish expression just before he dashed off into the bushes both Sarutobi's laughed aloud.

OoOoO

It was five hours later when the gates of Suna came into sight, and there was only one thing that could be thought at that time by all three of the gennin.

'I hate the desert.'

The one least affected by the sun though was Naruto since after the first hour he started using his wind manipulation abilities to create a light breeze that ran over his skin helping to keep it cool.

After another minute of walking where they reached the top of the next dune both Naruto and Sarutobi placed their hands above their eyes to block the remaining sun rays as they looked into the distance seeing the gates of Suna there.

"It'll only be another half hour if we speed up a little." Sarutobi spoke up after a few seconds of calculating how far away they were.

"_Hai Hokage-sama."_"Hai Oji-san." Came the collective answer from everyone.

After that was said the group did speed up to a light sprint.

OoOoO

"Damn messengers always having to wait until the last minute." Temari mumbled to herself as she was dashing across the rooftops towards Sunagakure's east gate.

She'd of just been told minutes before by a messenger-nin of the Kazekage's that since the Kazekage was still doing paperwork, he was expecting her to be at the gate to greet the Hokage of Konoha and his escort when they arrived within the next five minutes.

'And the messenger also said that the outpost spotted them coming too.' She thought as she landed on top of the said outpost right next to the gate. 'I guess it doesn't help either that I can't get that dream out of my head.'

The dream that Temari was thinking about was the one where she witnessed a single gennin massacre a mercenary army with very little help. It wasn't the fact that the boy massacred the mercenaries, but rather the method used to do so. It reminded her of the times she wound up watching as Gaara would do the same himself.

As her mind slipped back to the dream she was interrupted when she saw a group of travelers coming over the last dune before the gate.

"Heh, I guess I'm just in time." She mumbled to herself as she jumped off the outpost and landed on the inside of the closed gate. She waited as she heard the ninja on guard duty talk to the group outside of the gate and she used the opportunity to mentally prepare herself to deal with them. 'Well, it's time to put those acting skills from the academy to use.'

After another minute the gate started to open and she got her first look at her father's guests. The first one she saw was an old man who wore a white version of the robes that her father did except that it had the kanji for fire emblazoned on the front.

Deciding to save any further observations of the group till later since the group was now standing in front of her Temari bowed to the old man and spoke up.

"Greetings and welcome to Sunagakure, Hokage-sama." At this point in her welcome speech she stood straight again before continuing. "Kazekage-sama is currently indisposed and as such he has sent me to greet his guests."

"He's probably doing paperwork." The sandaime spoke up causing Naruto to have to hold back a snicker.

That action caused Temari's attention to focus on him. She wound up stopping in her tracks when she was about to speak to the blonde haired boy. She'd of just recognized the face from the dream that she had but she was quick to recover from her shock and she turned back to the Hokage. She smiled warmly at the old man before giving a slight cringe when she saw the amused look on his face. She had a feeling that the old man found her reaction to the blonde boy funny even if he didn't know the reasoning behind said reaction.

"If you'll please follow me then I'll show you all to the hotel that has been arranged for you to stay at tonight." With that she turned around and started leading the group of Konoha-nin through the streets.

OoOoO

As Temari was greeting the Konoha-nin, Gaara stood atop the gate where he was able to look down upon the guests backs. He was actually staring at the back of one particular person within the group and it wasn't the man he recognized as Konoha's Kage from a previous visit that the elderly man had made.

The blonde haired boy in the group was the one that Gaara watched and as he did so he was in what was quickly becoming one of his more frequent sane talks with the demon within him.

'_That is him.' _The Shukaku spoke up within Gaara's head. _'I sense Kyuubi-sama's chakra coming from the blonde boy.'_

'I wonder who he is.' Gaara thought to himself though the demon was able to hear the thought.

'_If you really want to catch Kyuubi-sama's attention then refer to the boy as such if you decide to confront him.' _Gaara remained silent as he listened to the demon's word._ 'Kyuubi-sama is probably just scanning for threats from within the boy so that he can help ensure his vessel's survival. He probably isn't paying to attention for whether or not there is demon chakra around him and just whether it is a threat to him or not. By using Kyuubi-sama's name when referring to the boy you will catch his attention and if the boy isn't already aware of him, Kyuubi-sama will try to convince the boy to talk with us.'_

Gaara turned from his inner-musings after he nodded to himself confirming to himself that he did understand what Shukaku suggested to find that the entourage from Konoha had of left with his sister. Deciding that he would confront the other vessel the next day, Gaara decided to start heading towards his favorite roof to have a more in-depth talk with the demon inside him.

OoOoO

"So how is your family Temari-san? It has been too long since I was last able to visit with your father and your family." Sarutobi was now walking ahead of his group next to the blonde konoichi as they walked through the evening light towards their hotel.

Temari looked over at the old man before shrugging her shoulders. "Father is rarely seen at home anymore since he likes to remain at his office in case something comes up, but my brothers are doing well. They've both chosen their paths as ninja and are doing fairly well with their careers." She thought it was obviously a bad idea to go into details about her youngest brother.

Sensing that she didn't want to stay on the subject of her family for too long, Sarutobi decided to move onto a new subject.

"Did your father happen to mention when he would be able to see me?"

"No sir, I didn't talk to him directly. I was just told by a messenger-nin to greet you." Sarutobi chuckled hearing this.

"Sounds quite like your father. I guess I'll know tomorrow then." Sarutobi shook his head as he spoke. Then he stood up straight again. "Things never change."

OoOoO

Naruto stretched as he lay upon his bed in the hotel room that he was sharing with Shikamaru.

"This has got to be the most comfortable bed I've ever been on." To Naruto it felt like a slice of heaven.

Over on the other bed Shikamaru was kind of confused. 'What is he talking about? This has got to be the stiffest bed I've ever been on.'

Naruto was totally oblivious to the Nara genius's thoughts as he continued to enjoy, what to him, was a great comfort compared to his bed at home which did more poking and prodding than any good bed should.

After a while of enjoying the 'comfortable' bed, Naruto looked over to his friend and noticed that he'd of fallen asleep during the last few minutes.

'It must've been the traveling.' Naruto thought to himself as he tried to get into a more comfortable position. After a while of tossing and turning Naruto finally decided to get up and go to the roof for a little while.

OoOoO

A few minutes later found Naruto sitting on the ledge of the hotel's roof looking out over the sight that was a desert night. Mesmerized by the beauty of the sight Naruto never noticed the set of eyes that stared intensely at him from several roofs away before they disappeared into the night.

OoOoO

"Time to wake up Naruto." Shikamaru gave Naruto another firm shake before sighing to himself in exasperation. Naruto was always tough to get up any time no matter what the circumstances.

The lazy Nara genius then took the time to rack his brain in order to think of the best way to wake up his snoozing friend while enacting a little bit of revenge for being so troublesome. This is something that is not normal for Shikamaru, but he found himself enjoying some of the ideas that were going through his head.

Finally with an almost evil smirk on his face, almost because he found it troublesome to give a truly evil smirk, he settled on one idea that he thought would be best suited for the situation with all scenarios considered.

Over the next two minutes, Shikamaru set up his idea using some of Naruto's 'emergency pranking supplies' and put it into motion.

OoOoO

Several blocks away Temari woke up to a very loud scream that sent a chill down her spine.

"What the hell was that?" She muttered to herself before shaking the chill off and flopping back onto her bed.

After a few more minutes of lying in bed and not being able to get back to sleep Temari finally decided to get up. As she did that she swore to herself that if she ever found out who woke her up with that scream then she'd really give them something to scream about.

Temari forgot about her promise of pain though as she looked at her clock and noticed that she was running late.

OoOoO

"I can't believe you did that." Naruto spoke to Shikamaru as he glared at his friend.

They were now walking side by side as they walked into the hotel's lounge where they were greeted by Sarutobi who was looking at the two gennin with amusement clear in his eyes.

"Yeah well, I thought I'd finally give you a lesson for being so troublesome when it came to waking you up." Shikamaru was positively smirking at Naruto enjoying every moment of Naruto's reaction to his own prank.

"Seriously though, you really have a knack for coming up with a good prank. We should team up and do a mass prank on a bunch of the villagers after we get back to Konoha."

Sarutobi shivered when he heard Naruto's idea. Oh how the villagers would come to rue the day they messed with the combined mental prowess's of these two genius gennin. He couldn't help though but to look forward to such an event if it ever happened.

"Or maybe we should just focus on that silver haired guy who is supposed to be the teacher for team seven. You know, teach him a lesson for being late all the time." Naruto broke Sarutobi's thoughts by suggesting.

'Oh how lively Konoha would be with the war that those three would have.' Sarutobi thought to himself while holding in a snicker.

"As troublesome as it is, I like where this is going." Shikamaru said as a glint entered his eye that was matched by the one that was in Naruto's.

And so another prankster awoke. (1)

OoOoO

An hour later, the group from Konoha was in the lobby of the hotel just finishing up their morning meals.

As the Hokage was preparing to leave the hotel towards the Kazekage's tower he spoke up to the three gennin there.

"Hinata and Shikamaru you two will be accompanying me to my day long meeting with the Kazekage. We will be reviewing the peace treaty that we have between our two villages and your parents agree with me that this would be a good opportunity for the two of you to learn a few things about politics since you two will eventually be taking over as heads of your clans."

Hinata and Shikamaru nodded their heads as they glanced at Naruto. Seeing their curiosity as well as Naruto's he continued.

"I'm sorry Naruto, but you are not allowed into this meeting since you are not from a prominent clan in Konoha." At Naruto's downcast look Sarutobi quickly continued. "However, I have arranged a guide for you for the day to take you around the village. Please take this opportunity to enjoy a day away from the village, maybe even do a little shopping that you normally wouldn't be able to do in Konoha."

Seeing that Naruto was looking much happier relieved Sarutobi. Smiling at Naruto he patted the boy on his head.

"Now Naruto, the rest of us must be going. Your guide is supposed to meet you in about a half hour so if you'll please stay here until the guide arrives." At Naruto's nod the Hokage and the other ninja left the hotel.

OoOoO

Temari was having a bad day. First she is woken up by a loud scream that apparently was heard throughout one third of the village, then she wound up beating the hell out of her brother Kankuro for trying to scare more little children on their way to their father's office, then she was told that she was to act as an escort and guide to one of the visiting Konoha ninja who would not be attending the meeting.

Thinking on the last thing as she walked, Temari couldn't help but wonder what Kami's sick sense of humor put someone who she suspected to be a demon vessel (oh how she hated the word jinchuriki) here in Sunagakure.

She shivered at the thought of what would possibly happen if her youngest brother knew that there was another person like him here in the city.

Based off of past reactions to strong ninja coming to the village then it was quite possible that half of the village would be destroyed by the end of the day from a clash between the two of them. She never thought of the fact that the blonde boy she thought might not be as insane as her little brother so her mind kept coming up with scenario's of possible meetings between the two vessels, and none of them were good.

It was at this time that she rounded the final corner along with Kankuro and entered the hotel that they were supposed to pick up the Konoha ninja at.

Temari froze when she saw who the ninja they'd be guiding around was. 'Ah crap.' She thought as she saw Naruto sitting at a table making marks and drawing in a scroll.

OoOoO

'And that's my final modification.' Naruto thought to himself as he wrote down the last two numbers next to an arrow on his diagram. 'This'll be the ultimate throwing weapon for someone like me. I just hope that I'll be able to convince someone here to make a batch for me. Then when I get back to Konoha I can hopefully convince that weapon shop to finally make them for me, otherwise I'd have to order them from here each time I needed more.'

Naruto then closed up his scroll and looked around again as he was putting it back into a scroll pouch that was on his left arm. (2) There by the entrance Naruto noticed two people who must've entered the hotel only a few short moments ago. The male of the duo wore baggy black clothes and a hood that had Naruto wondering just how the guy survived each day out in the dessert. The girl Naruto recognized as the one that greeted them when they entered Suna yesterday evening.

Naruto smiled as he waved at the two. Standing up from his table he pulled out his froggy wallet and gave the person at the hotel desk a tip for the good service before making his way towards the two.

When he reached the two Naruto stopped and gave the two a shallow bow. "Hi, my name is Uzumaki Naruto. May I have the pleasure of knowing your names." 'Man were those manner lessons useful.' Naruto thought to himself as he waited for an answer from the two.

"Father wanted us to escort this brat?" Kankuro asked rudely as he looked down on Naruto condescendingly. Kankuro's reaction was making Temari a little nervous since she was still able to remember what this boy did to those bandits in the dream she had.

"I'll have you know that I'm not just some little brat." Naruto spoke up before Temari could shout at her brother for possibly upsetting someone who might be as dangerous as their little brother. "I may be only twelve, but I'll have you know that I quit being some random brat the day I became a ninja."

Temari was surprised that the blonde boy's reaction wasn't as violent as she expected. Coming to the conclusion that this must not be the boy from her dream and that it was just that, a dream, Temari smiled at the younger ninja before returning the slight bow that Naruto gave to them as she introduced herself.

"My name is Akira Temari (3), and this here" she smacked her brother on the back of the head "is my brother Kankuro." Naruto looked slightly amused from the head smack that Temari gave Kankuro. "If you're the Konoha ninja that we are to escort, then if you would tell us what you'd like to do then it would give us a better idea of how to go about the day."

Naruto gave a genuine smile to Temari which further pushed in her belief that she was mistaken about this boy.

"Thank you Temari-san. To tell you the truth I was hoping to head over to a weapon shop. I have some outdated equipment as well as a plan for a weapon I was hoping to have made today if possible."

"Alright then, if you want a weapon made, then I guess we'll make a weapon shop our first stop today. So if you'll please follow us." As she spoke Temari grabbed Kankuro's shoulder, whose owner was pouting slightly from the hit to the head, and started walking out of the hotel.

'I have a feeling I can get to like these two.' Naruto thought to himself as he followed after them.

OoOoO

Naruto laughed as Temari smacked Kankuro upside the head again as they walked. Watching the two siblings as they walked along Naruto couldn't help but wonder if that was what it was really like to have a family.

Naruto was thinking to himself about what it'd be like if he actually had a family but he was broken away from his thoughts by Temari when she turned around and asked him a question.

"So Naruto-san, we have a few weapon shops here in Suna each specializing in different types of weaponry. They each focus on making and selling weaponry for shinobi of different specializations. So if you'll tell me what kind of weapons you were looking to search for then we can head for the right shop."

"Alright, I'm looking to buy a battle fan as well as to have a special type of Kunai made."

Temari's eyebrows rose when Naruto mentioned that he wanted a battle fan. She was thinking of trying to suggest he look for another weapon since fans were hard to learn how to use, but she decided to humor him for the time being and give her warning later.

"Okay, then the Aizu family's weapon shop should be the best for what you're looking for. It's where I go in order to have maintenance done on my fan." As she spoke she patted the base of her fan which could just be seen over her left shoulder. Naruto was surprised he didn't notice it earlier.

"We are fairly close to the shop so we'll be there in about two minutes at the pace that we're traveling at."

OoOoO

Three minutes later, and it was only three because it took Temari a minute to smack her brother around a bit for trying to intimidate Naruto again, the three of them stepped into the Aizu family weapon shop.

As the door chimed Temari mentally counted down from five. As her countdown reached zero a voice spoke up from behind them.

"Ah Temari-san. It is good to see you again." As the voice spoke both Kankuro and Naruto jumped three feet off the ground and whirled around nearly ready to attack the old man.

"Good morning Aizu-san. How has business been since the last time I was in?" Temari asked as she looked over her shoulder smirking at her two companions.

The man who was about in his forties with long brown hair and green eyes also wore a smirk as he watched the two young men behind his favorite client.

"Business has been going well, but I'm sorry, that is enough pleasantries. How may I help you today? I didn't think you'd be back for more maintenance for another few days at the least."

"It isn't me that is need of your services today Aizu-san, but rather this leaf-nin with me who was interested in your wares." Temari gestured to Naruto, who was just relaxing from his basic combat stance, as she spoke.

"I see. Well Leaf-san, what may I help you with today." The man asked this as he walked over and behind the store's counter.

"Oh yeah." As Naruto said this, he reached up with right hand and grabbed a scroll from a pouch on his left arm that Temari remembered seeing Naruto stuff a scroll into earlier. "I was wondering if you were into making throwing weapons."

At the old man's nod Naruto continued.

"Well, I've made a design for a special type of kunai, but none of the weapon smiths in Konoha are willing to make them for me. I was hoping that I'd be able to have a batch made here." As he spoke Naruto spread the scroll open on the counter top in front of Aizu.

Aizu's mind raced as he looked over the detailed schematics for the design of the kunai. If it were to be summarized, the Kunai wasn't as much one, but rather a blade that was twisted so that it was more like a drill, or a corkscrew.

"This is quite an interesting design Leaf-san, but I have to point out that something such as this would be nearly impossible to use without an extreme grasp on wind manipulation, so that means that not many people would be able to use these properly outside of this city."

From a couple isles down where she was looking at a new batch of Kunai Temari heard what Aizu said and became curious about what it was that the boy designed.

Kankuro was just sitting in the corner of the shop next to a training dummy looking bored since the store didn't have puppet parts.

"How many do you think you'd be able to make for me by the end of the day?" Naruto then asked. He was hoping to get as many made as possible.

"You're only here for the day?" Aizu asked. Upon receiving Naruto's nod he thought about it for a few seconds. "Well, I'd estimate that I can have one made within the next five minutes. If you don't mind sticking around for that I'll make the first one free of charge, and then I'd like to see you demonstrate the use of this weapon. After that though, I'd say that I could make about one hundred before closing time if I don't get too occupied with customers."

"Alright, how much will the one hundred cost me?" Naruto asked as he pulled out his wallet.

"I'm not sure yet. I'll let you know after I finish making the first one." Naruto nodded his head in acceptance to Aizu's statement. "Please take your time and look around as you wait. Maybe you can get Temari-san to help you if you're interested in a fan."

With that said, the weapon maker went into the back of the store to make the first Kunai.

Naruto spent the next few minutes looking through the shelves in silence until after five minutes just as Aizu said, he was back with the kunai in hand. Temari walked up along with Naruto to take a look at the weapon that the man was holding and she found it to be quite odd.

Naruto took the spiral kunai as he decided to call it in his hand and checked the balance which he found to be just as good as his normal kunai.

"Wow. This has better balance then I expected it to. I actually thought that it would be a little top heavy." Naruto said as he switched between several gripping positions with the Kunai.

"If you'll please give it a try, I'd like to see it fly." Aizu spoke up to Naruto as he gestured over to the training dummy in the corner.

A smirk came to Naruto's face as he replied. "Okay!" He was quite enthusiastic for a reason that Temari didn't grasp quite yet.

That is however until the boy flung the Kunai quite hard towards the dummy. It was at that time that she noticed that Kankuro was still sitting next to the training dummy looking as bored as ever. The Spiral Kunai proceeded to fly through the air incredibly fast and literally went right in front of Kankuro's nose right before implanting itself into the dummy just on Kankuro's other side.

"WHAT THE FUCK!!" Was the immediate yell from Kankuro as he proceeded to mumble darkly in their direction as he went to pull the kunai out of the dummy.

What happened then surprised Temari as she realized the reason as to why Naruto's kunai was designed as it was. Kankuro was trying to stand as he went to pull out the kunai. Since he was expecting the kunai to come out of the wood without a problem he wound up pulling himself back down onto his ass, hard, when the kunai didn't come out of the wood as he expected.

Temari looked over to both Aizu and Naruto as they smirked openly in Kankuro's direction.

"Twist the kunai counter-clockwise a few times as you slowly pull it out of the wood. The kunai should be imbedded pretty deep and as you just saw, it won't come out of wood easily, but if that were to have been thrown into say someone's arm then they'd wind up destroying all of the muscle that it was imbedded into as they pulled the muscle out along with the kunai."

"Wow." Temari said as she thought about what Naruto explained. To her it seemed like quite the idea to have a weapon that literally did all that damage to a living target while being complicated to remove without doing more damage on removal.

"Now how about the cost for the one hundred?" Naruto asked as he turned back to Aizu who was watching amusedly as Kankuro was still trying to get Naruto's kunai out of the dummy, having chosen to ignore Naruto's advice on removing it.

Temari couldn't help but find it amusing to see Kankuro standing sideways on the side of the dummy pulling on the kunai with obvious signs of stress on his face.

OoOoO

"What is your name?" Just hearing that voice speak as they exited the weapon shop scared both Kankuro and Temari shitless.

The two of them were frozen as the boy they were supposed to guide turned around towards the voice and spoke.

"Pardon me, but are you talking to me?" Naruto asked as he faced a boy no older then he was. Naruto was a few inches taller then the red head boy with black rings around his eyes but Naruto was able to sense the strong chakra that emanated from him. The other noticeable feature of the boy was that he wore a large gourd on his back that Naruto couldn't tell much about since he couldn't see most of it.

"Yes." The red head spoke as he continued to stare at Naruto.

"I'm sorry, but isn't it rude not to introduce yourself first?" When they heard Naruto ask that both Temari and Kankuro looked at each other thinking that the boy was going to die at any moment now.

"Sorry." Gaara didn't sound like he meant it at all. "My name is Akira Gaara."

Hearing the name Naruto looked over his shoulder at the other two that shared the same surname as this Gaara person.

"I'm guessing that you're related to these two?" Naruto asked gestured over his shoulder at the still frozen siblings. At Gaara's nod Naruto continued. "Well my name is Uzumaki Naruto. It is nice to meet you." As Naruto introduced himself he stuck out his hand for a hand shake. Naruto's name was ignored as Gaara turned around.

"Come." After a few seconds Gaara added. "Please."

Kankuro and Temari were gobsmacked now. Did Gaara just make an attempt at politeness? This was something new to the other two siblings.

"Alright, I'm coming." Naruto stated as he followed the red head. It took a few seconds but Kankuro and Temari were too curious as to why Gaara would try to be somewhat polite to this person out of all the ones in the world.

OoOoO

End Chapter

OoOoO

AN: A fun chapter to write though a little shorter then I wanted it to be. I'm going to leave the prank that Shikamaru pulled off to wake up Naruto to your own imagination. As you might have realized, I decided to have Naruto be a good sport about it. Besides, the talk they have afterwards about teaming up to pull pranks on Kakashi more then makes up for it I believe.

I know that not much happened this chapter really. It is just that I decided to end it here because otherwise the chapter might of wound up being at least another 20-30 pages and I didn't want to make this one too long. I hope you will all forgive me for this but that's the way it is.

Next chapter is the big planned meeting between Naruto and Gaara. I plan on making it really interesting. Here Naruto will finally learn of his inner-demon as well as there being an interesting battle.

I can't help but laugh when I think of what Naruto and Shikamaru could do if they wracked their brains together to come up with pranks. Expect to see the fruits of their labor sometime just before the chuunin exams.

I didn't actually mention this but since Naruto uses so many scrolls to store his supplies and other things, Naruto has clothing that are covered in scroll pouches. His vest has three on each side. His shirt underneath has three on each side and one on each arm on the side, and his pants have three scroll pouches on each pants leg right under his two kunai holster. That makes a total of 20 pouches each capable of holding two scrolls in each. So yeah, Naruto does carry around a lot of scrolls.

This is a general notice for all of the characters that don't have a mentioned last name in the Naruto Anime/Manga. For all such characters I have made their last name the same as the one that belongs to their Japanese Voice Actor for the Anime according to the website naruto-kundotcom. In the case of Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari I used the last name as Gaara's voice actor since I couldn't use different last names for all three of them. The other thing that made me choose to use Akira as the last name is that it is very similar to Akirame which means Resignation, Acceptance, or Consolation. I'm choosing acceptance for this one seeing as it is something that I believe that all three of the Sand Siblings were looking for in the Manga/Anime.

See you all next time.


	9. 8: A Rumbling Revalation

OoOoO

Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

OoOoO

It was mid-afternoon in Sunagakure where two twelve year old ninja could be seen standing in the center of one of Suna's training fields that were a kilometer outside of the city walls.

Gaara and Naruto stood facing each other staring each other down with light smirks covering their faces. Though it wasn't noticed by their spectators, Gaara and Naruto were also standing in the same position with their arms crossed over their chests and heads held high.

Temari and Kankuro were at the edge of the training field gawking at what they were seeing. There was actually a ninja that didn't seem to be intimidated by their youngest brother in the least.

After a few minutes of silently staring of staring at Gaara, Naruto decided to finally break the silence (and the tension at the same time though he didn't realize the second part).

"So Gaara-san, what business do you have that you wished to speak to me out here in the training grounds for?"

Gaara stared at Naruto for another few seconds before he spoke up.

"You don't look crazy."

It was needless to say that the statement confused the three others.

"What do you mean by that?" Naruto asked after a second. Genuinely confused by what Gaara was trying to say.

"You are like me yet you haven't been driven to insanity." Gaara said this with such a perfectly straight face that Naruto couldn't help but wonder if this person didn't belong in an asylum.

Meanwhile a distance behind Naruto, Temari froze in shock. This changed everything again in how she looked at the blonde boy. If Gaara was saying what she thought he was saying then she didn't know what she would do. Kankuro meanwhile was just as confused as Naruto.

"Sorry buddy, but I don't know what you're talking about." Seeing the genuine confusion in Naruto's eyes Gaara couldn't help but smirk upon realizing that he was about to rock the leaf-nin's world.

"Then you do not know of the demon locked within you."

Naruto was shocked to the core hearing that. He suddenly had a feeling of something waking up somewhere in him and that somehow he suddenly felt more aware much to his confusion.

"Say what?" Naruto asked. He was seriously hoping that he didn't hear what he thought he heard and that this new feeling wasn't something to do with that. Naruto also couldn't help but think that the feeling was familiar from not that long ago though he couldn't remember when it was.

"You have a demon within you just like I have one within myself." Gaara said that quite calmly.

Temari was now all but literally frozen. She was having a flashback of what she saw the blonde gennin do in her dream and it scared her to realize that it was real. A part of her mind registered though that the boy, Naruto, seemed to be as awe-stricken as she was. Could it be that he didn't remember that event?

It took a few seconds more for Naruto to recover his countenance from what Gaara was just saying.

"What makes you say that?" Naruto asked with his eyes narrowed at the red head in front of him.

"On your way to this city yesterday the demon within me sensed and recognized bits of another demon's chakra within you. He started advising me to avoid you at all costs, but I am curious about you." At this point Gaara started walking circles around Naruto who stood his ground as he continued listening to Gaara's words. "Now that I'm closer I can sense the demonic chakra within you as well. Do you hear the voices too?"

The question Gaara asked at the end of his explanation caught Naruto off guard. 'He's catching me off guard too often here.' Naruto thought to himself. He was then about to say 'no' to Gaara's question, but for some reason he couldn't find the word.

"So you have heard a voice then." Gaara stopped again where he was before he circled Naruto. "You show uncertainty in whether you should believe what I say." Naruto stayed silent and stared at Gaara. "Then I will make you know."

Suddenly Naruto saw four rope like structures of sand shoot up from the ground in a compass like formation around Gaara before they started circling him up to three feet above his head.

"Let us fight." With that statement one of the strands of sand shot at Naruto.

OoOoO

'Keep my distance and watch his attack pattern.' That was the first thought to enter Naruto's head as soon as he heard Gaara say that he wanted to fight.

Naruto immediately took action. Starting his Tenkuu Saraida he slid backwards across the training ground at the same speed as Gaara's tendril of sand moved forwards. Needless to say that Kankuro and Temari were surprised to see Naruto moving backwards towards them without moving his body from the position he was in as he continued to stare at Gaara.

After two seconds of gliding he sensed that he was getting close to Kankuro and Temari so he changed directions so that the sand would shoot past him before turning and trying to nail him in the side. Of course Naruto didn't let that happen. Instead he jumped skyward before pulling a scroll from his pocket. Throughout the whole battle so far, Gaara and Naruto's eyes never left each other. The sand changed direction again to shoot up at the airborne Naruto, but there was suddenly a poof of smoke that engulfed Naruto before suddenly there was a shout that really brought Temari's attention back to the battle from yelling at Kankuro to go tell their sensei what was happening.

"**Wind: Great Breakthrough!**" Temari watched slack jawed as the high ranking wind technique broke its way through the tendril of sand and discharged over half of it before it hit the ground sending even more sand flying into the air.

A few seconds later Temari quit covering her eyes as the wind and sand settled. What she saw greatly surprised her.

There in the center of what was quite noticeably a fairly large crater was the blonde hair genin whose back was to her but she couldn't help but find the find the sight of the boy impressive. Naruto stood straight facing Gaara completely still. He was holding an open battle fan in front of him so that the face of the fan was running up his right arm which was holding the base at waist height. The fan was long enough to go up the distance to his shoulder and she was sure that Gaara was only able to see Naruto's head and legs. After a few seconds of silence she noticed that Naruto's left hand wasn't idle as to her surprise he was doing one handed seals behind the fan where her brother couldn't see them.

'What the hell?' she thought to herself as the boy was suddenly in motion again. 'How does he move without using his legs?'

She watched as Naruto was moving sideways circling Gaara. A few seconds into this he suddenly twisted his body to the right and did a throwing motion with his left hand and spinning before throwing three shuriken at Gaara. As she expected Gaara's sand rose to his defense but what was unexpected was that there seemed to be an impact against the sand before the shuriken reached the shield half a second later.

"Dang." Naruto spoke up for the first time since the start of the battle. He was still moving sideways along the ground slowly circling Gaara who hadn't moved so much as an inch except to slightly turn his head as Naruto circled around him to keep the blonde in sight. "I didn't expect you to realize that I threw a few wind shuriken at you just before the real ones. And that defense of yours is quite interesting too." Naruto let a smirk grace his face as he continued. "I guess since you're using elemental manipulation then I will have to start getting serious."

"That's what I want." Gaara said as a small smirk of his own graced his face.

"Were you trying to kill me, or is this a spar?" Naruto asked to set things straight.

"An all out spar." Was Gaara's response before he launched the other two tendrils of sand at Naruto who was on the move again at the same time.

OoOoO

The large explosion that happened at the beginning of the fight didn't go unnoticed. Baki who was at the time standing on top of the Kazekage tower saw the large explosion of sand and grimaced when he felt a foreign chakra begin to rise in power shortly afterwards.

Now he was racing towards the training ground to figure out just what was going on. He suddenly became worried when he saw Kankuro fleeing from the training grounds.

"Hey Baki-sensei!" Kankuro yelled as he stopped and waved his hand over his head.

"What is it Kankuro?" Baki asked when he came to a stop in front of Kankuro.

"Something is happening at the training ground."

"Obviously." Came the dry response from the jounin.

"Seriously sensei. Gaara is fighting with the Konoha-nin that Temari and I were to escort today." Baki's eyes narrowed when he heard that.

"And why would that be?" Baki asked as he started rubbing his temples to ward off the pending headache.

"Gaara started spouting off about the boy having a demon inside of him as well. Naruto, I think his name was, didn't seem to know what Gaara was talking about but at the same time he couldn't seem to dispute Gaara's claim." This surprised Baki. "Then a few seconds later Gaara suddenly said that he wanted to fight and attacked the boy."

Baki was now feeling that headache that he was trying to ward off only seconds before.

"Then we better hurry over there. We don't need a war to break out because one of them killed the other."

Kankuro paled hearing his sensei's statement. The two then turned back towards the training ground and ran full speed for it with Baki leaving Kankuro behind.

OoOoO

Though Gaara wouldn't say it out loud, he was actually having fun with this fight. The boy Naruto was surprisingly keeping up with all of Gaara's techniques and jutsu. Heck, now even Gaara was moving around (this was quite surprising to Temari since it was the first time she'd seen Gaara actively moving in a fight).

"Suna Shuriken!" Gaara called out as he made and launched five of his projectiles at his speedy opponent.

Naruto flipped over the incoming attack before landing in a crouch and throwing his hand toward Gaara.

Both Gaara and Temari were quite surprised as an invisible attack landed on Gaara and threw him backwards as Gaara threw his right arm up in an uppercut resulting in a fist of sand shooting from the ground and knocking Naruto skywards before both fighters landed on their backs a few meters from where they were when they threw there latest attacks.

Suddenly there was laughter in the air as Naruto suddenly jumped up onto his feet. He was rubbing a bruise that was quite visible on his chin.

Gaara also rose up though it was with the aid of his sand. He was surprisingly wearing a small smile of his own, the satisfaction of fighting an opponent for an extended amount of time without the bloodlust of his demon taking control clear on his face.

"Well this is fun." Naruto spoke up as Gaara and Naruto started another staring match.

"Quite." Gaara's response had the effect of surprising Temari. Temari was wondering when all of these surprises would finally mount up and give her a heart attack.

"Shall we continue?" Naruto asked.

"Yes, I haven't seen what I wanted to see yet." The statement had Naruto confused.

"Look, I don't know if what you say is true or not. I'll admit that the people in my village certainly seem to think I'm some demon with the way I am treated by the majority of the older people in my village, but it doesn't mean that I am some demon."

Gaara's eyebrow (if there was one there) rose up and he gave Naruto a questioning look. "I never said that you were a demon. I only said that there is one inside of you." After another few seconds of staring at each other Gaara spoke again.

"Has your chakra ever turned red on you?"

That question struck home on Naruto. Suddenly his head began to hurt as he remembered a time not even a week ago where he was literally seeing everything in a red hue and that he heard a voice talk to him.

Gaara saw Naruto's face suddenly become contemplative for a few seconds before Naruto suddenly refocused and stared back at Gaara.

"And what if I have?" Naruto asked Gaara.

"That is the chakra of the Kyuubi-no-yoko, the lord of demons."

The statement threw Naruto for another loop.

'What if he's right? That would explain the hatred that the villagers show me all the time.' Naruto then looked at Gaara. 'If he's right and he also has a demon, does that also mean that he is feared in this village?"

"If you have a demon inside of you then does that mean that you're feared and hated by this village?" Naruto asked.

"Yes."

That one quick and simple honest answer settled it for him. Naruto now knew for sure that there were things that were being kept from him in his own village.

"I see." As Naruto said that he turned contemplative. After a few seconds Naruto spoke up again.

"I have much to think about. If you'll excuse me?" With that Naruto dashed off back to the city.

As Naruto disappeared Baki finally showed up.

"What is going on here?" He yelled out.

Too bad he was five seconds too late to see Naruto as he disappeared over a dune.

OoOoO

Hinata was worried. After the meeting where Shikamaru and she were to learn about politics and peace treaties nobody was able to find Naruto. It was now past 10:00pm.

Asuma had gone out to find Naruto outside of the city now and that was over two hours ago. She wanted to go out herself to search for her team mate but her and Shikamaru were commanded by Sarutobi to stay in the hotel in case Naruto came back while their sensei searched and he talked to the Kazekage about what happened to lead to Naruto's disappearance.

They were currently sitting in the hotel's foyer playing a game of Shougi as they waited for word on how the search was going.

Shikamaru was just finishing removing a set of stones off of the board that he'd of just captured when they heard the door leading into the hotel open. Turning from their game they both looked to see who it was and were pleasantly surprised to see Naruto standing there even though his head was down and he was staring at the ground.

"Naruto-kun!" Hinata spoke up as she quickly got up heading for the blonde. She was quickly followed by Shikamaru.

"Where have you been Naruto?" Shikamaru asked as they arrived at their teammate.

Things were silent for a few seconds before Naruto just walked past the two of them in silence and walked across the foyer to head upstairs.

Hinata and Shikamaru glanced at each other questioningly before moving to follow Naruto up the stairs.

"Naruto?" Shikamaru spoke as they reached up the stairs. As they looked around they spotted Naruto as he started to climb another set of stairs that they knew led up to the roof of the hotel.

Quickly following, they silently ran to and up the stairs going through the open door at the top and came out onto the roof. After looking around for a few seconds they spotted Naruto sitting on the edge of the roof staring down into the street below. They moved over to Naruto and sat down next to him before they both watched him worriedly.

"You two are really my friends, right?" The sudden question threw his teammates off guard.

"Of course we are Naruto-kun." Hinata answered after the second it took her to recover from the shock of the unexpected question. The three fell into silence for another few minutes before the silence was broken again.

"Do you still want to be my friends?"

This line of questioning was really worrying Hinata and Shikamaru.

"Yes Naruto and nothing will ever change that." This time it was Shikamaru who answered Naruto's question. The two heard Naruto give an empty chuckle at that.

"Answered my next question already." After saying that Naruto gave another empty sounding chuckle.

"Then I guess you two deserve to know." Hinata and Shikamaru decided to say nothing at this point and just let Naruto talk unless they were asked a question.

"I discovered the reason why all of the grown ups back home hate my guts today." Despite their surprise Naruto's teammates stayed silent and let Naruto continue.

"It has to do with a secret that has been kept from me for all of my life. It turns out that I'm not entirely human." Here Naruto looked up at the stars that hung up in the clear night sky and took a deep breath before he continued. "I have a demon locked up inside of me."

"What?" Shikamaru couldn't help but speak up to hear that last tidbit of information.

"You heard right Shikamaru. It turns out that the Yondaime was never able to kill the Kyuubi and that it is instead locked up in my body somehow." Hinata and Shikamaru now stared amazed at Naruto. "I don't know how it was done yet, but I learned from someone in this village who also has a demon inside of them about the one in me."

"I've been spending the last several hours thinking about what this means and I've come to one definite conclusion." Naruto took a moment here to look off to his sides into each of his teammates' eyes. "I need to get answers."

As Naruto said that he stood up again, an action that was quickly followed by Hinata and Shikamaru.

"Thanks for listening. I'm going to leave again for a bit." With surprise Hinata was about to ask Naruto why he was leaving again when he cut her off.

"Please don't follow me. I just want to go and visit someone for the rest of the night. When you see him please tell the old man that I went to visit Gaara for a while."

Before either one could say anything Naruto was suddenly moving across the rooftops at a speed that Hinata and Shikamaru knew they wouldn't be able to catch Naruto at.

After watching Naruto disappear a few buildings into the distance they both turned around and walked back into the hotel foyer now waiting for a completely different person to arrive.

OoOoO

"May I help you?" Gaara asked without leaving his meditative stance.

"Yes." Naruto said. "I've come to finish our spar."

Gaara opened his eyes and looked into Naruto's own.

"Then we shall." With that Gaara stood up and started walking towards the training grounds that they were at earlier. "Follow me."

OoOoO

Sarutobi was tired. With everything that happened that day he was ready to go to sleep.

That was until he stepped into the hotel and saw two young shinobi glaring at him. 'Oh kami, what now?' he thought to himself as he walked towards the two members of team nine that he left at the hotel.

"We saw Naruto." Shikamaru spoke up first in a quiet voice. Sarutobi felt some relief wash over him.

"He left again though after telling us what was wrong." Hinata finished for Shikamaru. She was still glaring at him while Shikamaru seemed calmer about whatever was bothering them.

"It is good to hear that Naruto is alright." Sarutobi said with a warm smile on his face. It started dying down though when he saw that the other two were still upset. "What happened?"

"We know about Naruto's burden now." Those words sent a shiver down the old mans spine. "Naruto discovered it today from a sand ninja who according to Naruto is in the same position as him."

"I must talk to Naruto now then." Sarutobi went to walk towards the stairs but Hinata was now standing in front of him.

"If you would care to tell us why something of this magnitude was never mentioned to anybody before?" Sarutobi was able to tell from the look in Hinata's eyes as she spoke that she wasn't making a request.

Sarutobi sighed.

"Fine, but I will only tell you if Naruto says that he wants you to know as well."

"Alright." Shikamaru spoke up again from where he was sitting previously. "Naruto said that he was going to go talk to someone that he met today for a while and that he would be back afterwards."

"Well at least it seems that Naruto is making at least one friend in this village." Sarutobi mumbled to himself.

OoOoO

Naruto ducked and spun beneath another suna shuriken as he continued to glide up to Gaara. Gaara seeing Naruto's fist cocked back jumped backwards in the nick of time just before the area of ground just in front of where he previously stood exploded upwards in a plume of sand that was ten feet tall.

Quickly realizing that he could take advantage of all of the sand that was just shot into the air Gaara quickly gathered chakra and as he landed thrust his open hands towards the sand cloud as he said in a calm voice. "Sand Coffin."

Inside the dust cloud Naruto noticed that a lot of sand was starting to gather around him and condense. Cursing his foolishness Naruto wound up his arm that was holding his battle fan and threw it as hard as he could towards where he guessed that Gaara should have landed from his jump. After throwing his weapon Naruto took the startled shout as a successful distraction and as soon as the sand let up from his arms a little more Naruto quickly made a half-seal with one hand and threw the other to the side creating a large gust of wind that blew the sand cloud away from around him.

"Shall we go big?" Naruto asked Gaara without moving from his position.

The small smirk that Gaara wore on his face as he made a large ball of sand float into the air beside him, which was quickly accompanied by two more, was all the answer Naruto needed.

OoOoO

KAABOOOOOOOM!!!!

Kankuro woke up from his sleep to a loud explosion. Quickly opening the blinds on his window and looking outside he saw a giant cloud of sand beginning to settle over where the training field was.

"Oh kami, not again."

With that said Kankuro quickly threw a set of clothes on and dashed out the door forgoing the face paint that he usually wore.

OoOoO

"What the hell was that?" This was asked by the Konoha genius as he stared out the hotel window at the large sand cloud that he along with Hinata watched rise into the air from just ouside of the city walls. "Tch, troublesome. I have a feeling that Naruto is at the center of that explosion."

Hearing the second part of what he said Hinata looked out the window again. "I think we should go and check it out just in case it is Naruto then."

"Tch, troublesome guy." Shikamaru frowned in thought for a second before nodding to Hinata and they opened the window before jumping out of it and towards the source of the sand cloud that was now dissipating as if a gust of wind was blowing it away. As they watched the cloud disappear Hinata couldn't help but comment.

"Yeah, must be Naruto."

OoOoO

It was approximately the same time that both the Suna and Konoha parties arrived at the training field where there was now a twenty foot wide crater that ran ten feet deep. The Konoha group consisted of the whole Konoha delicate that was in Suna excluding Naruto, and the Suna group consisted of eight chuunin, four jounin, the Kazekage, Kankuro, and Temari..

It was a few seconds later as the two Kage's were about to give orders to their subordinates when movement was spotted several feet away from opposing sides of the crater.

As the two bodies began to climb to their feet a voice spoke seeming to come from the one that was now recognizable of having blonde hair that spiked in all directions. His clothing was torn and his shirt lay in taters around his frame as a result of the large explosion.

"You know Gaara? When I said lets go big, I didn't expect you to actually throw out an attack that would cause such a huge explosion." He finished speaking just as he raised his feet. Then he used what was left of his left sleeve and proceeded to wipe a little bit of blood that was on his cheek from a cut that was already heeled.

"You wanted big, so I gave you big." Was Gaara's reply as he also finished rising to his feet and much to the shock of many of the Suna ninja Gaara was wiping some blood off of his face. Gaara then snorted. "Besides if I used any of my attacks with less power that one of yours would've just blown through mine and I'd be in worse condition than this."

"Hehe, sorry bout that. I have a slight problem with putting too much chakra into my jutsu sometimes." Gaara actually sweatdropped hearing that though nobody could see it in the darkness.

"What the hell is going on here?" Gaara and Naruto jumped and turned around hearing the voice that only one of the two was able to recognize as the Kazekage.

"Who's the old fart?" Naruto immediately asked. Of course he didn't know who it was. Naruto never met with the Kazekage before and the old man wasn't wearing the clothing that would mark him as Sunagakure's leader.

There were several chuckles from some of the Konoha-nin that brought the attention of Gaara and Naruto to all of the other people around them.

"This is the Kazekage Naruto." Naruto went from curious to sheepish when he heard the voice of someone he recognized. Naruto turned to face the Hokage.

Sarutobi then turned to the Kazekage and whispered something to him. After a few seconds of thought the Kazekage nodded. "I will trust your judgment for now Sarutobi-dono."

The Kazekage then turned to the chuunin and jounin of his village. "Head back to the barracks and let it be known that the situation is well in hand. There is no attack against the village and I will personally be getting to the bottom of this mess. You may then go back to what you were doing before this started."

Hearing their order they all saluted and with a shout of 'Hai Kazekage-sama', they started running back to the village.

"You may head back to the hotel." Sarutobi spoke up as the Suna shinobi left back towards the village. "Hinata, Shikamaru, you may stay behind if you wish.

"Domo Arigato Hokage-sama." Hinata said with a small bow as Shikamaru bowed with her.

After another few seconds of watching the other shinobi leaving the Kazekage noticed that two of his ninja hadn't have moved from where they were standing.

"Temari, Kankuro, what are you two doing here still?" He asked the two catching their attention. Temari gave a slight bow to her father before standing back up straight and addressing him.

"I wish to stick around and learn what is happening as well. There was another fight between these two during the day that ended with Naruto retreating after Gaara told him something that disturbed him." Kankuro nodded his head in agreement to Temari's statement.

Of course Temari decided to leave a few details out of the previous confrontation when talking to Baki about what had happened and Gaara was tightlipped at the time so nobody other than Gaara, Naruto, and Temari knew what happened during the majority of the first spar between the two vessels.

"Very well Temari. You can stay since I have a feeling that you aren't telling me everything." Temari sweatdropped hearing that. "You however Kankuro can head back home. If there is anything you should know someone will tell you."

Kankuro was about to complain but as he opened his mouth to do so he was elbowed in the gut by his older sister, who then proceeded to whisper something in his ear that made him pale and run back towards the city.

"Thank you Temari." The Kazekage said before turning back to the others. The Kazekage gave a small smirk upon seeing the amused look in the Hokage's eyes as he watched the middle sibling leave. He then turned serious as he turned to the two boys who were fighting not even minutes before.

"Now, the rest of us here will head to my office where I can finally get an answer as to what the hell has been going on."

Gaara was back to looking as stoic as he usually did while Naruto was sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. Nonetheless they both answered the aged leader.

"Hai, Kazekage-sama."

As the group started walking towards the Kazekage tower Naruto's voice could be heard one more time.

"Damn it, now I have to replace my battlefan. Oh yeah, I was going to do that anyways."

OoOoO

End Chapter.

OoOoO

End AN: I thank everyone for the excellent reviews again. I'd particularly like to thank Mr. Lee for giving me a lot to think about. Due to his review it has made me look back over the story and make a few changes here and there as to how I want to do things in the future of this story. This will be the last chapter where I don't use the Japanese names for jutsu since one of you friendly reviewers pointed out an excellent site for me to use to get all of the proper translations for what I want.

In the near future I should be receiving the first few of a couple Beta'd versions of chapters I wrote previously for this story. If I like what I read of them I will be reposting the story with the beta'd chapters and keep this one on until my beta reader catches up to where the story is now.

Last but not least. I'd like to apologize to all of you that I'd have promised that this would be the last chapter in Suna, but I just wanted to get this chapter out and I figured that making the Suna Arc (as I'm starting to think of it as) one more chapter longer. I hope you enjoyed the Gaara/Naruto interactions and that it has brought some light as to why Gaara isn't acting as he normally would. (To clear that up for you guys it's that he is curious the other person like him, and that he does not want to alienate someone who might understand what it is he has gone through.)

Thank you all for reading this story and sending in your reviews. Please remember that I love constructive criticism so I would love to hear what everyone thinks that I could do better. The only way I'll be offended by anything you write is if you downright flame my story and only point out the negative points of my work. I would love to hear however what you think I could do better. Thank you again for reading and I'll be trying to have the next chapter out soon.


	10. 9: The not meant to be filler

AN: Howdy one and all!! I am back in action and I'm sorry to say that for a little bit I lost inspiration for writing anything at all though there is an idea for another Naruto Fanfiction that I was starting to explore as well since it seemed like it would be fun. Anyways, that idea is still going to be taking a back seat to this one for at least a while though on my bio page I may be asking opinions about the idea and whether I should write it or not anyways.

Getting on track I would like to thank the two songs I just heard on a cd I bought a few days ago that helped me get back into the mental groove for writing. 'Bleed it out' Written by Linkin Park is the first one. Don't ask me how that song did it though since it seems to talk about a person committing suicide and then wanting people to move on around him. The second song, which is much better in my opinion, is 'What I've Done' by the same band. Just listening to those two songs got my creativity flowing again.

Now unfortunately I had the beginnings of the meeting that follows Gaara and Naruto's second spar but unfortunately I just was unable to find a way to write it where I wouldn't just be giving a recap of events with a little bit of humor thrown in. So I decided to forgo that meeting and skip ahead a little to when they get back to Konoha since I would be just writing filler stuff in there instead of moving on with the story. For those of you who were wanting to see a scene for when Naruto gets his new battle fan, but again I felt that it'd be pretty redundant to his previous visit to the Sunagakure Weapon shop, and so that will also be skipped. I'm sorry if these two things skipped cause some disappointment to many of you, but I want to move the story along to the chuunin examinations. (insert evil grin here) Now there ought to be some original things happening there, and the 3rd rounds of the exams should be especially entertaining since it will have a fight in the tournament that I'm sure that none of you will have seen coming. Sorry, but no hints beside the fact that it will be unexpected. (Sticks tongue out at readers)

As usual I'd like to thank all of you for your great reviews.

OoOoO

Za Kaze Shokkou: A Naruto AU Fanfiction.

Written by: Cloud1239999

Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me. It is as simple as that. I'm only writing this story for both my personal and the enjoyment of others. I do not intend to make any form of money off of this story. If however you do see reason to sue you will find no money within my pockets. That's right; I'm a 21 year old with no money and still living with my parents. :P

Rated: M (For Swearing, Gore, and any other mature thing that may show up including a possible future lemon ((Don't know this one for sure)). Reader Discretion is advised.)

OoOoO

On this early morning in Konoha many people were out enjoying the cool fresh air that the new autumn day was bringing them. The birds were chirping their early morning songs, the sun was slowly rising over the Hokage monument, and there were two gennin who were sitting on top of said monument looking over the village.

Drinking from their flasks of water Naruto and Shikamaru were watching over their home village looking almost eager as they waited for something to happen.

"Oh kami, this is going to be good." Naruto spoke up breaking the silence between the two.

"You said it." Shikamaru answered as he chuckled to himself.

"Hey, hey. How about we have a toast to our first act in our new alliance?" Naruto suggested as he looked towards Shikamaru with a sparkle of humor in his eyes. Shikamaru outright laughed in reaction to Naruto's suggestion.

"Sure." Shikamaru said lifting up his own flask of water as Naruto did so too.

"Then here's to the debut of Konoha's legendary prankster duo!" Naruto said with a grin on his face as he moved to bump his flask against Shikamaru's.

"To Konoha's legendary prankster duo." Shikamaru parroted as the flasks connected.

It was right at the moment that the flasks bumped against each other in a toast that there was a loud explosion within the village. Naruto and Shikamaru watched as a plume of green and pink smoke exploded upwards from an apartment building that was only eight rooftops away from their position. Following the explosion was the loud scream of a familiar cycloptic jounin.

Naruto and Shikamaru both burst out laughing when they heard the scream.

After the few minutes that it took for the two of them to calm down from their laughter Naruto lifted up his water flask towards Shikamaru again with a huge grin on his face.

"And here's another toast to our first successful prank as business partners." Shikamaru laughed again hearing that as he bumped flasks with Naruto again.

"Enhanced paint bombs, a prankster's best friend." Shikamaru said as he continued chuckling to himself.

"And the best thing is that the villagers would never be able to pin this prank on me." Naruto said with a chuckle.

"Yeah," Shikamaru replied. "Especially since they would never think that we were working together so they would never think to check my place for our prank supplies."

"And past events tells me that they will certainly try to pin the blame for this on me."

Shikimaru frowned in thought when he heard that. After a few seconds he went back to smirking.

"Well this time they can't do anything to you so you get to enjoy this all that much more."

Suddenly Naruto had a huge grin on his face that in all honesty scared Shikamaru when he saw it.

"You know what this means don't you?" Naruto asked.

Shikamaru thought about what Naruto was saying and a similar grin started to spread across Shikamaru's face.

"Yeah." He said slowly as his grin grew larger. "It means that since this was just our debut we will only be expected to pull off bigger pranks from here."

If anyone was there to see the two grinning gennin they would more then likely be on the verge of running for the sake of their sanity. The grins on their faces were positively evil.

OoOoO

It was later that day when several high-ranking ninja were in a meeting within the Hokage tower. Snickers were heard after Kakashi entered on time for the meeting for a change.

Kakashi obviously wished the Hokage didn't order him to be on time for sure to this meeting. Due to the prank earlier that day everything Kakashi owned was currently covered in green and pink paint. Sure, Kakashi managed to get the paint off of himself and the set of clothes he was currently wearing since, but he was unable to get most of it out of his hair. Kakashi's hair was currently tri-colored with pink on one side, white in a strip down the center, and green on the other side. Gai was silently crying about how hip Kakashi looked, and that was the cause for the many silent snickers around the room, which were accompanied by glares towards the snickerers from Kakashi.

'I swear that if I ever find out who did this that the person will learn that I picked up more from Obito then just how to be laid back and tardy.'

A few minutes later the meeting started.

"Now as you all know," the Hokage spoke up, "the chuunin selection exams will be starting at the end of the week."

OoOoO

"Drop him now."

After hearing the statement from a familiar voice, that in all honesty scared him as much as his brother, Kankuro dropped the annoying boy that bumped into him immediately. Turning around to face Naruto, Kankuro scowled as he looked at the blonde.

"And what the hell do you want gaki?" Kankuro asked in what he thought was a confident voice. Temari who was behind him though was just watching amusedly since she was able to tell that Kankuro's confidence was being faked.

"I was just giving some advice that would help you avoid trouble. After all, I'm sure that the jounin on the building behind you wouldn't be happy with you if you hurt the Sandaime's grandson." Naruto said this with a big smirk on his face.

Kankuro turned around seeing a sunglasses wearing Jounin standing atop the building behind him with a frown upon his face as he stared down upon the situation.

It was at this time that Hinata and Shikamaru quietly walked up to Naruto and looked at all of the people present. Noticing the grin on Naruto's face Shikamaru shook his head and Hinata smiled amusedly to herself.

"So what did you do now Naruto?" Shikamaru asked breaking the silence. Naruto couldn't help but sweat drop hearing the question.

"Hey!" Naruto shouted as he turned to his teammates. "What makes you think that I started this whole situation?"

"The past." Was all Shikamaru said as he looked up at the spectacled jounin for a second before turning back to Naruto causing Hinata to giggle as Naruto pouted.

"True I guess." Naruto conceded. "However this time it was the squirt here" Naruto patted Konohamaru on his head causing the boy to pout in a way similar to what Naruto was just doing, "who started this situation off by insulting Sakura's forehead." Naruto chuckled to himself thinking about the insult.

"I'm guessing there was a high speed chase involved then?" Shikamaru asked looking the third's grandson up and down.

"Yeah!" shouted the little boy while pumping his fist in the air. "It was great, billboard brow couldn't catch me at all."

At this time Shikamaru noticed that Sakura was off in the background with her eyebrows twitching. Shikamaru smirked a little bit seeing the twitch.

"How about you run along squirt and we can handle this situation." Naruto spoke up as he put his hand back atop the young boys head.

Konohamaru pouted again towards Naruto and beckoned for his two friends to follow as he ran off with them. After waiting a minute for the children to disappear from sight Naruto turned back to the older two thirds of the sand siblings.

"If you two are here, then I'm guessing that Gaara is around too isn't he?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah." Temari answered. "We're not sure where he is at the moment though. He said he was going to check something out. He was probably searching for you."

Naruto took a brief look at Ebisu, who was silently watching the conversation in case there was trouble, what he saw made him smirk.

"You know Ebisu-san, you must not be much of a jounin if a gennin from Suna was able to sneak up on you."

After hearing Naruto's statement everybody looked up to the jounin who was just turning around. When he finished turning around he blinked in surprise upon seeing the redheaded twelve-year-old standing quietly behind him.

"What the…" Ebisu said as Gaara silently walked past him and suna-shunshined down to the ground in between Naruto and his siblings.

"Are you taking the exams?" Gaara asked as he stared at Naruto.

"Ah yes, the Chuunin Exams. My team has a meeting in an hour. I guess I'll find out then." Naruto said in answer.

"Then I look forward to fighting you again in the exam." Gaara turned as he said that and then walked past Kankuro and Temari. "Let's go." He said to them as he walked past.

"See you around Naruto." Temari said as she and her brother left following Gaara.

(1)

OoOoO

"Check!" Naruto's voice rang out as he grinned at Hinata who was sitting across from him at the chessboard.

That statement was followed by an impassive stare that shortly returned down to the board. It was five more moves before Hinata's voice rang out with its own call of "Checkmate!"

Now it was Naruto's turn to stare impassively at Hinata while she grinned at him.

As that was going on both Asuma and Shikamaru were chuckling to themselves over Naruto's situation.

After turning a mock glare to his sensei and teammate, Naruto decided that now was a better time then later to start the meeting so that they would stop laughing at his horrible end game.

"So what are we doing today Sensei?" It took a few more seconds for Asuma to calm his chuckling before he answered the question.

"I heard about your meeting with the Kazekage's kids today." At the enthusiastic nod from Naruto along with the more subtle affirmatives from his other two students he continued. "I was told that the three of you might be interested in participating in the upcoming Chuunin examinations."

It took Asuma a second to register the looks from all three of his students that just screamed 'you think?' He smirked at them before continuing.

"Now I'm wounded." He puts his hand over his heart while giving a mock-pout. "I'm starting to think that the three of you just want to make Chuunin so that you won't have to work under me any more."

Asuma's only reaction to that was for the three gennin to burst out laughing.

OoOoO

End Chapter

OoOoO

AN: I know that I said at the start of this chapter that I wanted to avoid turning this chapter into a filler chapter, but unfortunately that's what wound up happening. I just wound up deciding that it would be better to get what I have out now, even if it is shorter then I'd like it to be, instead of being another week overdue so that I could add at least the first two exams to this chapter. Instead those and maybe the preliminaries for the third exam will be what are on the menu for the content of the next chapter. That one will probably be the longest chapter yet with an estimated length of thirty pages in Microsoft Word.

(1) Please keep in mind that the sand siblings mainly interacted with Naruto out of the Konoha ninja so they would talk to him more then Naruto's teammates.


End file.
